Brahms/Shostakovich. Piano Quintets

£10.99

NF/PMA 9913

Catalogue Number: NF/PMA 9913
Number of Discs: 1
Barcode: 4607053326697
Price: £10.99

Category:

Description

Recorded: St. Catherine Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg, November 12, 13 & 14, 2002. Sound recording & supervision: Alexey Barashkin.
Text: Northern Flowers.
English translation: Sergei Suslov.
Design: Anastasiya Evmenova & Oleg Fakhrutdinov

 

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Quintet for Piano and Strings in f minor, Op. 34 (1864)
1. Allegro non troppo 15.14
2. Andante, un poco Adagio

7.58

3. Scherzo. Allegro

7.27

4. Finale. Poco sostenuto — Allegro non troppo

10.49

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
Quintet for Piano and Strings in g minor, Op. 57 (1940)
5. Prelude. Lento

5.13

6. Fugue. Adagio

11.33

7. Scherzo. Allegretto

3.36

8. Intermezzo. Lento

6.43

9. Final. Allegtetto

7.47


The St. Petersburg Chamber Soloists
Ilya Ioff, violin
Lidia Kovalenko, violin
Alexey Ludevig, viola
Alexey Massarsky, cello
Igor Uryash, piano
Recorded: St. Catherine Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg, November 12, 13 & 14, 2002. Sound recording & supervision: Alexey Barashkin.
Text: Northern Flowers.
English translation: Sergei Suslov.
Design: Anastasiya Evmenova & Oleg Fakhrutdinov

The history of creation of Johannes Brahms’s Piano Quintet is extremely interesting and tangled. In its first version, it was a String Quintet (with two cellos), which was no success and severely criticized by Joseph Joachim, a remarkable violinist and the composer’s friend. The second edition of the opus, Sonata for Two Pianos, was performed by the author, and the Polish pianist and composer Carl Tausig in 1864 in Vienna, this time making quite an impression on the audience. However, advised by Clara Schumann who liked the initial version better, Brahms remade the piece again, but into a Piano Quintet eventually, finalizing the score in the autumn of 1864.
As a result of al these transformations undergone, the Quintet for two violins, viola, cello, and piano became one of the most popular masterpieces of the great composer, inevitably exciting the audience with sparkling virtuosity, abundance of sound, and some unmistakably ‘Brahmsian’ intimacy. The first movement is serious and extensively elaborated in time. Its rich melodic contents are given in contrasts that are sudden, and sometimes acutely dramatic. The second movement, a slow one, is full of tenderness and quietude. With its unhurried, lullaby-like swing it is generically akin to German Lied, to many remarkable works of Schubert, and in fact of Brahms himself. The powerful and dashing Scherzo is more on the classical tradition side, that of Beethoven first of all. The integrity and clarity of form matched by volcanic energy and melodic splendor makes this part one of the most meaningful in the composer’s heritage. The Finale opens in sad, even tragic intonations, evolving little by little into a classical Rondo where the dance element (inherent to many finales by Brahms) develops in a rapid and diversified manner, easily following the plot of the genius who wrote it.
The performance of Piano Quintet of Dmitry Shostakovich on November 23, 1940 in Moscow (by The Beethoven Quartet and the author) was to become one of the greatest triumphs in his life. The musicians were encored dozens of times, and there was no end to applause. After the concert, Shostakovich had to walk alone around Moscow for several hours to calm down. The new composition was accepted with delight. Colleagues, friends, critics, all as one emphasized the merits and charm of the new composition. Moreover, in 1941 the composer was awarded a Stalin Prize for the Piano Quintet. It was a gold medal with an image of the “Leader of Nations” and one hundred thousand rubles, a heap of money enormous for those times. The rulers hinted to disgraced Shostakovich that he was ’forgiven’.
In this opus, the composer addressed the Bachian polyphony (such are the first two movements, Prelude and Fugue), however by many features of its melodic and harmonic language, you can tell the quintet’s kinship to Russian musical classics. Simultaneously with the quintet, Shostakovich completed the arrangement of Boris Godunov. The melodic attitude and the special world of images of Mussorgsky’s opera had a noticeable influence on this chamber piece. As in other important works of the late Thirties, the core features of Shostakovich’s mature style show here especially emphasized: the quintet amazes you with its masterfully planned structure, and its polyphony in particular, precisely timed culminations, the unity of all the parts in the ensemble, and plentifully offered tunes. The five–part quintet is taken in as if in one breath, and remains not only among the best works of Shostakovich, but also a major work of this genre in all the 20th century’s music.

Additional information

Weight 120 g
Dimensions 12.2 × 13.5 × 2 cm