PACM041: String Quintet No. 2 in G, Op. 111 - Brahms
Flag
Download

Buy MP3

FLAC lossless download

download
price

Price Code
Budapest Quartet with Hans Mahlke:
Josef Roismann, violin
Alexander Schneider, violin
Boris Kroyt, viola
Hans Mahlke, viola
Mischa Schneider, cello

Recorded on 15, 17 November 1932, Beethovensaal, Berlin
Issued as HMV DB.1866-8
Matrix Numbers:32-3497/3501, 32-3512, takes: all 1st except sides 3 & 5, take 2.
Download ID: 228062, 434948
(Duration 22'57")

 

 

PACM041

Play sample movement:

Order CD

 

The Budapest with Mahlke play this sunny, wonderful work to a turn and the reprocessing has produced sound that seems scintillating for its age... - Bill Rosen

 

"I've been tormenting myself for a long time with all kinds of things, a symphony, chamber music and other stuff, and nothing will come of it. Above all I was always used to everything being clear to me. It seems to me that it's not going the way it used to. I'm just not going to do any more. My whole life I've been a hard worker; now for once I'm going to be good and lazy!"

These words, spoken by Brahms in the summer of 1890 to his friend Eusebius Mandyczewski, indicated the composer's plan that his String Quintet in G major would be his final work. Despite its difficult opening, where somehow the cello has to make itself heard from beneath the rest of the players' forte semiquavers, caused much consternation amongst the members of the Rosé String Quartet who began rehearsing it for the first time in November 1890 with Brahms in Vienna ("the cello...must scrape mercilessly to be heard" warned cellist Elisabet von Herzogeberg). Despite these warnings, and those of Brahms' great friend and ally Joachim, the composer let it stand. The première in Vienna on November 11th, 1890, was a fabulous success.

But the Quintet was not to be Brahms' final work - the experience of its composition and the sensational reaction to its appearance, led the composer to reconsider. telling a friend:

"Recently I started variuos things, symphonies and so on, but nothing would come out right. Then I thought: I'm really too old, and resolved energetically to write no more. I considered that all my life I have been sufficiently industrious and had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace. And that made me so happy, so contented, so delighted - that all at once the writing began to go."

This 1932 recording shows little to belie its age. Perhaps the very finest detail is to an extent sacrificed for a more overall rounded sound, but it really is a treat for the ears. Hearing this performance, made just 42 years after the work's première, one senses that it would have made a perfect end to Brahms' career. But knowing what it inspired in him, at least partly, to go on to produce, one can also be glad that it was not the end of his music.

 

REVIEW OF Brahms: Quintet #1 (Budapest Quartet, Hobday) (1937) and
Quintet #2 (Budapest Quartet, Mahlke) (1932)

Johannes Brahms write 24 chamber music works, all of them masterpieces, but not of equal popularity. Among those that are rarely heard are the two string quintets. I have never heard either of them in concert and there are relatively few recordings. At least a partial explanation of the obscurity of the the F Major (#1) is that it has an unconvential finale filled with rigorous counterpoint. For the G Major (#2), there is no explanation; it is a brilliant, sunny work filled with melody. The Budapest Quartet with help play both quintets with splendid elan and lean textures and far outclass their late 1950's remake for Columbia.

String Quintet #1

In 1882, while spending the summer at his favourite health resort, Bad Ischl, Brahms completed his 1st String Quintet and despatched it to his publisher Simrock (as well as the Piano Trio Op.87) with the message, ‘I tell you, you have not ever had anything so good from me, nor perhaps published in the last ten years’. The Budapest open rather vigorously, but mellow for the second theme. Their playing makes the development very clear as Brahms subjects his exposition themes to a complex but lively development. The recapitulation begins fortissimo instead of piano as at the beginning.

The second movement is a 5-part structure with a sustained opening part followed by a slow and then a fast scherzo. The third and final movement is rather unusual. It begins in a strict fugal fashion followed by a more lyrical second theme. But the whole movement buzzes with contrapuntal ingenuity.

The reprocessing is not one of Pristine Audio's miracles, but it is more than adequate to allow appreciation of the wonderful music and performance.

String Quintet #2

Brahms’ Second String Quintet was also composed at Ischl, 8 years later in the summer of 1890. Brahms intended it as his swansong, saying "I have worked enough; now let the young fellows take over".

Brahms was only 57 when he wrote this Quintet, and it sounds like anything but a swansong. It is a mature, lively work written by a composer at the height of his powers. It was not to be his chamber music swansong; he later discovered the great clarinettist, Richard Muhlfeld, and went on to write four works for him: the Clarinet Quintet, the Clarinet Trio and two Clarinet Sonatas.

The Second Quintet is a thrilling, ebullient four-movement work. The Budapest plays the scintillating opening with great panache: the theme in the cello and violas with the violins creating great excitement with high arpeggios and trills. There is slowing and mellowing for the winsome second theme. The Budapest make the development clear as Brahms undertakes a forthright and lean workingout. There are distant modulations and the recapitulation ends as it began with the high violin tumult.

A somber, ethereal slow movement is ABA form consists of a sustained opening section interspersed with a more lively variant. The third movement is one of those Brahms slow intermezzi that stands in place of a scherzo. A fast, brilliant finale begins with rapid viola figurations leading to a stalwart tutti. and an exposition rich with themes. The development is powerfully driven yet graceful. An even faster, light, folkish coda ends the work.

The Budapest with Mahlke play this sunny, wonderful work to a turn and the reprocessing has produced sound that seems scintillating for its age.

Reviewer: Bill Rosen


Find out more:

 

Fourth Movement
Vivace ma non troppo Presto

About Brahms:

BBC Artist Profile
The Classical Music Pages
Johannes Brahms Websource

CD covers to print:
(NB. Disable Page Scaling before printing)

Download pdf CD cover

CD-writing cuesheet (save as .cue):
(Use this to split MP3 files - see here)

Cue sheet

Download our Full Discography
Printable text listings of all Pristine Audio historic releases
Restoration by Andrew Rose:


 

 

Google
 
Web Pristine Classical

 

 

Pristine Classical - DRM-free historic FLAC and MP3 downloads since 2005