Brahms-Schoenberg: Piano Quartet

Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet in g, op. 25, as orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg
Allegro
Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo
Andante con moto
Rondo all’Zingarese: Presto

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Simon Rattle, conductor

Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’s chamber work exaggerates the inherent romanticism, filling the piece with denser harmonies and stranger timbres. Rattle manages not only to keep the piece from becoming slapstick but also brings out melodies hidden among the many instruments.

aircheck 27 February 1983, 1300–1400h, KUSC-FM Los Angeles
(Por si la palabra «aircheck» no se traduce bien, sabed que significa una grabación sacada de la radio, a veces de un evento difundido en vivo, más comúnmente de un evento grabado en vivo para emitirse otro día. De costumbre los airchecks se identifican por las siglas de la radiodifusora y la fecha de emisión.)


Rattle conducts the Brahms-Schoenberg
65.2 MB - no password

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Brahms: Double Concerto, Tragic Overture

Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra in a minor, op. 102
Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin
Janos Starker, cello
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ferec Fricsay, conductor

Tragic Overture, op. 81
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Loren Maazel, conductor

These are older recordings reissued by Deutsche Grammophon primarily because of the work of Starker and Fricsay (1962) and Maazel (1959) although every musician was outstanding throughout both performances. The only shortcoming is the work of the recording engineers because they placed the orchestra's microphones too far away in fear of saturating their tapes. Starker's microphone is especially intimate and both soloists deliver an extraordinarily subtle performance.

Because of the wussy recording levels, here is an instance where the derivative MP3s are better than the commercial cassette. The Golden Records program normally rips cassettes with its input gate at -12dB but in this case the gate was set wide open in order to hear the orchestra better. The conductors, orchestras, and soloists are smiling down on NCH Software for their help in this venture. Crank your volume up and you'll smile, too.


Brahms Double Concerto
67.1 MB - no password

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Brahms-Schoenberg: Piano Quartet for orchestra

Arnold Schoenberg's orchestrations of:
Brahms: Piano Quartet in g, op. 25
Bach Chorale Preludes:
"Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele", BWV 654
"Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist, BWV 631

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Schoenberg is usually thought of as impossibly dissonant but he was secretly the very last gasp of German Romanticism. With his orchestration of the piano quintet one is tempted to imagine Brahms on pschedelics while Schoenberg's Bach out-Stokovskies Stokowski. Analogue audiocassette of a digital master, 1986.

Schoenberg-Brahms
68.0 MB - no password

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