# Favorite recordings of Brahms' Klavierstucke (op.76, 116,117,118 and 119)



## silentio

Finally I make a thread about my most favorite works in the literature of solo piano. I'm a big fan of solo works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Franck, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Ravel, but if I'm forced to pick one and only one set, it will be among Brahms' Klavierstucke op.76, 116, 117, 118 or 119.

These musical miniatures are profound but never esoteric/pretentious, melancholic but not depressive and the emotional and stylical ranges contained within are staggering. Personally, I think Brahms' Klavierstucke are the musical equivalent of Pascal's _Pensées_.

What are your favorite recordings?

For me, the best of the best is *Gould*. What a surprise how well he can play Brahms (I recalled he himself was very pleased about this recording and called it his best work). Other pianists may have more beautiful tones or arguably more authentic styles, none can surpass Gould in the ability to reveal the contrapuntal nature of Brahms' writings. There are several instances in Op.117 and Op.118 that he emphasizes on the "hidden" bass-line and that adds more complexity to the music. Instead of indulging in late-romantic approach, Gould's playing is pretty "clean" and transparent in texture; in certain pieces it makes me wonder if Brahms' foretold the arrival of impressionism and neoclassicism:






The only drawback thing? I wish he had recorded all of them.

For other interpreters , I kinda enjoy Lupu, Katchen, Rubinstein and Sokolov. I find Bachaus' playing so heartless and Pogorelich self indulged.


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## Pugg

Julius Katchen and Murray Perahia springing to mind instantly .


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## Mandryka

silentio said:


> Finally I make a thread about my most favorite works in the literature of solo piano. I'm a big fan of solo works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Franck, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and Ravel, but if I'm forced to pick one and only one set, it will be among Brahms' Klavierstucke op.76, 116, 117, 118 or 119.
> 
> These musical miniatures are profound but never esoteric/pretentious, melancholic but not depressive and the emotional and stylical ranges contained within are staggering. Personally, I think Brahms' Klavierstucke are the musical equivalent of Pascal's _Pensées_.
> 
> What are your favorite recordings?
> 
> For me, the best of the best is *Gould*. What a surprise how well he can play Brahms (I recalled he himself was very pleased about this recording and called it his best work). Other pianists may have more beautiful tones or arguably morI'm e authentic styles, none can surpass Gould in the ability to reveal the contrapuntal nature of Brahms' writings. There are several instances in Op.117 and Op.118 that he emphasizes on the "hidden" bass-line and that adds more complexity to the music. Instead of indulging in late-romantic approach, Gould's playing is pretty "clean" and transparent in texture; in certain pieces it makes me wonder if Brahms' foretold the arrival of impressionism and neoclassicism:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The only drawback thing? I wish he had recorded all of them.
> 
> For other interpreters , I kinda enjoy Lupu, Katchen, Rubinstein and Sokolov. I find Bachaus' playing so heartless and Pogorelich self indulged.


Artur Schnabel
Hardy Rittner
Elizabeth Leonskaja
Heinrich Neuhaus
Ignaz Tiegerman
Helene Grimaud (Erato)
Maria Yudina
Valery Afanassiev
Burkard Schliessmann
Sviatoslav Richter
Walter Gieseking
Emil Gilels
Van Cliburn
Backhaus (1930s)
Valentina Lisitsa
Håkon Austbø
Piet Kuijken
Artur Rubinstein
Wilhelmina Kempff (The Cologne Radio Concert on Orfeo)


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## silentio

Mandryka said:


> Artur Schnabel
> Hardy Rittner
> Elizabeth Leonskaja
> Heinrich Neuhaus
> *Ignaz Tiegerman*
> Helene Grimaud (Erato)
> Maria Yudina
> Valery Afanassiev
> Burkard Schliessmann
> Sviatoslav Richter
> Walter Gieseking
> Emil Gilels
> Van Cliburn
> Backhaus (1930s)
> Valentina Lisitsa
> Håkon Austbø
> Piet Kuijken
> Artur Rubinstein
> Wilhelmina Kempff (The Cologne Radio Concert on Orfeo)


It's great to see you mentioned Tiegerman. His Op.117 is quite riveting.


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## Mandryka

Check also Tiegerman's op 118 /5, which has very bad sound but the performance is a bit interesting I think, because of a sort of melancholy nobility which, as far as I know, no one else finds in that piece.

If you're interested in the music Tiegerman's Fauré is also special.


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## chesapeake bay

Mandryka said:


> Artur Schnabel
> Hardy Rittner
> Elizabeth Leonskaja
> Heinrich Neuhaus
> Ignaz Tiegerman
> Helene Grimaud (Erato)
> Maria Yudina
> Valery Afanassiev
> Burkard Schliessmann
> Sviatoslav Richter
> Walter Gieseking
> Emil Gilels
> Van Cliburn
> Backhaus (1930s)
> Valentina Lisitsa
> Håkon Austbø
> Piet Kuijken
> Artur Rubinstein
> Wilhelmina Kempff (The Cologne Radio Concert on Orfeo)


this is a pretty good list  I particularly like Maria Yudina's op 117


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## Vaneyes

Lupu, Angelich, Pogorelich, GG, Kovacevich, Grimaud.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

I have the London box set of solo piano works by Julius Katchen, and have always enjoyed it. It contains all of these works.


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## Mandryka

chesapeake bay said:


> this is a pretty good list  I particularly like Maria Yudina's op 117


I don't remember the Yudina sound quality is quite so terrible on my recording. She wrote some poetic commentaries on the intermezzos

http://math.stanford.edu/~ryzhik/brahms.html


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## Triplets

Lupu was my first exposure to these works and he rains the standard. These are Brahms most striking solo Piano works.


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## silentio

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> I have the London box set of solo piano works by Julius Katchen, and have always enjoyed it. It contains all of these works.


Katchen is superb in op.76


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## Mandryka

When people talk of late Brahms piano music they usually mean the works listed in the title of the thread. But there's a twist. Towards the very end of his life he wrote a sequence of 11 organ preludes, his op 122, and some of them were later transcribed to piano by Busoni. They are worth hearing, best on organ but the Busoni is OK. There's an old recording by Paul Jacobs (the pianist) which is the best I've heard of them. For the organ originals I recommend Gerd Zacher.


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## elgar's ghost

I also have the Julius Katchen set on Decca and I love it. I don't buy multiple recordings of anything apart from symphonies by certain composers so just having a set as well-regarded as the Katchen is good enough for me.


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## Dirge

Opp. 116-119 is relatively sparing, rarefied music that provides the pianist with little or no place to hide, so aspects of the playing that I don't like are ruthlessly exposed. As such, I've never found a completely satisfying recording of one opus, much less the lot of them, but Ivan Moravec comes mighty close in his Nonesuch recording of Op. 117 …

The recording is a product of Moravec's early '80s NYC recording sessions with producer/engineer Max Wilcox, which resulted in four superb albums: Janacek, Schumann/Brahms (both for Nonesuch), Chopin, and Debussy (both for Vox). The first two Intermezzi are taken a bit slower than usual, the third, much slower than usual, but the music is more than well sustained throughout owing to Moravec's unflagging focus & concentration and unerring sense of timing. Add to that Moravec's elegantly singing phrasing, ultra-refined touch, and judicious weighting/balancing of lines and you've got an Op. 117 recording that's not likely to be matched any time soon. [The Schumann/Brahms album from which these recordings are taken gets my vote for best album/LP never to be released (so far as I know) on CD.]

The Glenn Gould album of Intermezzi that you like so much is also a favorite of mine. Gould's playing is more angular and note-discrete than usual in this fare, and yet there's a still discernible if ever so slightly deconstructed sense of flow about it … and I agree that he conveys the bass line, whether real or implied, to great effect on the whole. The atmosphere is a bit gray and overcast (which I like), and Gould occasionally milks the clock and draws things out a bit too much for my internal timekeeper, but there's an inherent tension and suspense to the playing that keeps me listening. The playing is idiosyncratic to be sure, but it's interesting and effective nonetheless.


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## silentio

Dirge said:


> *Opp. 116-119 is relatively sparing, rarefied music that provides the pianist with little or no place to hide, so aspects of the playing that I don't like are ruthlessly exposed.* As such, I've never found a completely satisfying recording of one opus, much less the lot of them, but Ivan Moravec comes mighty close in his Nonesuch recording of Op. 117 …
> 
> The recording is a product of Moravec's early '80s NYC recording sessions with producer/engineer Max Wilcox, which resulted in four superb albums: Janacek, Schumann/Brahms (both for Nonesuch), Chopin, and Debussy (both for Vox). The first two Intermezzi are taken a bit slower than usual, the third, much slower than usual, but the music is more than well sustained throughout owing to Moravec's unflagging focus & concentration and unerring sense of timing. Add to that Moravec's elegantly singing phrasing, ultra-refined touch, and judicious weighting/balancing of lines and you've got an Op. 117 recording that's not likely to be matched any time soon. [The Schumann/Brahms album from which these recordings are taken gets my vote for best album/LP never to be released (so far as I know) on CD.]
> 
> The Glenn Gould album of Intermezzi that you like so much is also a favorite of mine. Gould's playing is more angular and note-discrete than usual in this fare, and yet there's a still discernible if ever so slightly deconstructed sense of flow about it … and I agree that he conveys the bass line, whether real or implied, to great effect on the whole. The atmosphere is a bit gray and overcast (which I like), and Gould occasionally milks the clock and draws things out a bit too much for my internal timekeeper, but there's an inherent tension and suspense to the playing that keeps me listening. The playing is idiosyncratic to be sure, but it's interesting and effective nonetheless.


Thank you so much for your thoughts. I wholeheartedly agree with the statement in bold. No amount of splashy virtuoso or beautiful tones can make up for a firm grasp of the well-crafted structures and musical insights of these miniatures.

I will check Moravec out for sure.

Regarding Gould, some of his choices for the tempo are just weird: for example, this op.76 is way too fast.






However, in the pieces where the tempo are justified, his "angular" and "discrete" playing does wondrous jobs of shaping the phrase and giving the music a direction. I have never heard a clearer and cleaner Op.118 no.6: no fussing around, just let the music speak:





]


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## Mandryka

silentio said:


> Thank you so much for your thoughts. I wholeheartedly agree with the statement in bold. No amount of splashy virtuoso or beautiful tones can make up for a firm grasp of the well-crafted structures and musical insights of these miniatures.
> 
> I will check Moravec out for sure.
> 
> Regarding Gould, some of his choices for the tempo are just weird: for example, this op.76 is way too fast.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> However, in the pieces where the tempo are justified, his "angular" and "discrete" playing does wondrous jobs of shaping the phrase and giving the music a direction. I have never heard a clearer and cleaner Op.118 no.6: no fussing around, just let the music speak:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ]


I can let you have the files for the Nonsuch recording if you want, PM me.


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## realdealblues

All of them: Katchen
Op. 116-119 Kempff
Op. 116 - Goode, Gilels
Op. 117 - Ax, Lupu, Gould
Op. 118 - Austbo, Perahia, Lupu
Op. 119 - Goode, Perahia, Lupu

Various bits: Rubinstein, Richter


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## Guest

Helene Grimaud.


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## Selby




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## Pugg

Selby said:


>


This picture speaks for it self. :angel:


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## Andolink

Nicholas Angelich is my favorite in the op. 116-119 pieces.


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