Superbly recorded – with presence, clarity and good balance – the latter reflecting the collegiate nature of these compelling and revealing performances, qualities shining through in the concentrated C-minor Quartet, emotionally direct music, yet complex, nothing obvious or given away, fully worked out in this alluring account of personality and interaction. The more-expansive A-major work, rich-toned and full-blooded in these players’ address if also intimate and dynamically variegated, opens with a memorable and sustaining motif, embraces a slow movement in which passions run deep, and rounded by a Finale of exhilarating dash. These caring/sharing/next-level readings are on DG 486 4650 and also available on vinyl. The Opus 25 Piano Quartet – the one that Schoenberg orchestrated – to follow, hopefully?
Krystian Zimerman, Maria Nowak, Katarzyna Budnik & Yuya Okamoto record two of Brahms’s three Piano Quartets – in A (Opus 26) & in C-minor (Opus 60) – for Deutsche Grammophon.
