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Brahms: Violin Sonatas 1-3 - Schardt, Vogler

Brahms: Violin Sonatas 1-3 - Schardt, Vogler

MDG Scene  903 1916-6

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Chamber


Brahms: Violin Sonatas

Stephan Schardt, violin
Philipp Vogler, piano


Sure Success
Philipp Vogler and Stephan Schardt have conducted a daring experiment on three sonatas for piano and violin by Johannes Brahms, presenting these works on an original grand piano from the famous workshop of Johann Baptist Streicher, known to be the composer’s special favorite, and a violin strung with mere gut strings. What initially seemed to be an iffy undertaking has now produced a successful result: never has Brahms been heard with such great transparency and yet so full of bouncy and dynamic energy!

Mysteries Probed
The playing style and the choice of tempos suggested by the historical instruments of course contribute their share here. Vogler and Schardt compellingly fill Brahms’s thoroughly enigmatic tempo markings with life. Just listen to the subliminal ländler in the second movement of the D minor sonata! The fact that it does not need an oscillating rubato for vibrant expression is particularly impressively shown in the development section in the first movement: the ostinato “kettledrum” in the piano bass produces with relentless stringency an irresistible suction effect ... that one cannot resist!

Problems Solved
The combination formed by the historical grand piano and a violin with gut strings immediately lends plausibility to Brahms’s instrumentation. The polyrhythmic structures making all possible metrical divisions simultaneously appear right at the beginning of the G major sonata reveal a clarity and transparency without rivals. And it is fascinating to experience how welcome a deliberately employed vibrato marks a high point. In his sparing use of this expressive means Stephan Schardt has an authentic model in Brahms’s friend Joseph Joachim.

Pure Pleasure
In his choice of bowings, fingerings, and portamenti Schardt also follows precedents set by Joachim. It almost goes without saying that this violinist drawing on rich historical performance practice experience also employs skillful bowing to exploit all the articulatory and expressive opportunities offered by gut strings. The three-dimensional production of this Super Audio CD renders all of the above with special vividness: in 2+2+2 reproduction, music we thought we knew so well assumes a freshness that makes for pure pleasure on each new hearing.

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