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Brahms: Complete Piano Music, Vol 3 - Rittner

Brahms: Complete Piano Music, Vol 3 - Rittner

MDG Scene  904 1680-6

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Instrumental


Brahms: Fantaisen Op. 116, Drei Intermezzi Op. 117, Klavierstücke Op. 118, Klavierstücke Op. 119

Hardy Rittner (piano)


Audio Sensation
Hardy Rittner has done what no other pianist before him has ever done before: he has recorded Brahms with tonal and musical perfection on original instruments from the composer’s time. The instrumental hurdles toward producing a rendering that would match the modern sound precision familiar to us today apparently seemed to be too high. After two volumes with the composer’s early oeuvre, his last two piano cycles from 1892-93 now follow on a grand piano by Johann Baptist Streicher from 1870 and on a grand piano by Johann Michael Schweighofer’s Sons from 1876-77. Hardy Rittner conjures up extraordinary sound worlds with a master’s natural ease on instruments from the Hecher Collection of Vienna – an audio sensation!

Brilliant Cycles
Brahms described the Intermezzo No. 1 from op. 119 as follows in a letter to Clara Schumann: “It is teeming with dissonances! Every measure and every note must sound like ritard, as if one wanted to imbibe melancholy out of each one of them.” The piano sonata era was long over for Brahms when he began his late oeuvre. He now joined together intermezzi, caprices, rhapsodies, ballades, and romances to form four cycles that met with an enthusiastic response not only from his friend, the Bach scholar Philipp Spitta, who wrote that “the piano pieces” are “perhaps the most brilliant and profoundest music that I know by you.”

Cosmic Dimensions
In his late oeuvre for solo piano Johannes Brahms did indeed gather together the whole cosmos of his music. The twenty works look to the past and to the future – very much to the liking of Arnold Schönberg, who even fifty years after the death of his fellow composer wrote of “Brahms the Progressive” in an essay.

Distinguished Echo
Vol. 1 brought Hardy Rittner the title of “Young Artist of the Year 2009” from Echo Klassik. For his Schönberg recordings – also for the first time on historical instruments – he received the Echo Klassik award for the Solo Recording of the Year 2010. The critics raved about this “benchmark recording” – a distinction also certainly applying to this sympathetic and in every respect splendidly produced new release.

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Review by John Broggio - August 31, 2011

In keeping with the first two volumes, this is full of exceptional playing on instruments Rittner has chosen to complement the pieces.

Having given two discs of Brahms' early output, Rittner now jumps to the opposite end of his creative spectrum - the four sublime collections of piano pieces Opp 116-119 and plays them in order of publication. On this disc there are two instruments:
- J. M. Schweighofer's Sohne (1876/1877) for Op. 116 and the last of Op. 119
- Johann Baptist Streicher & Son (1870) for the remainder
Those who know the music will immediately notice that the more outwardly virtuosic music and the more introspective is roughly how it has been split on instrumental terms. Those who adore the Intermezzo's of Op. 116 need not fear though for both piano's are capable of singing in Rittner's hands; conversely, the more volatile elements of the remaining works are also given bite by the Streicher.

The performances are, in common with the rest of the series, a joy to behold. Just as Ronald Brautigam redefined Beethoven playing to these ears in his BIS series, Hardy Rittner is here producing some of the finest Brahms playing ever committed to disc; these would be in serious consideration for library choice in any medium even without considering the instruments used. Just as much as Rittner performs each gem beautifully - full of passion, mystery & energy - he then collects them into the groupings Brahms gave them so that the full linear effect of the compositions can be heard and felt. The pianos give the denser textures clarity where previously most pianists (even ones as great as Gilels) using modern Steinways or similar have to resort to mere weight of sound, giving a richer harmonic experience and allowing the counterpoint to be more clearly audible at speeds otherwise impossible for the same effects.

The sound that MDG is fully in keeping with the playing.

Highly recommended.

Copyright © 2011 John Broggio and HRAudio.net

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Sonics (Multichannel):

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