Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

[DavidW]

I don't think Faust and Melnikov are especially known for period instruments? Which also suggests they thought it was important here.

Actually Faust has a very long history performing on period instruments.

[Madiel]

Actually Faust has a very long history performing on period instruments.

I stand corrected. I don't know her work all that much, though I have intentions of investigating the Faust-Queyras-Melnikov triumvirate more thoroughly.

EDIT:Listening more closely. I don't even mind the piano tone. Though it'll be interesting how I respond to it in the solo piano on the album.

SECOND EDIT: There are certain moments where Faust seems to deliberately match her tone to the horn tone. It's delicious. 

[Herman]

Faust is one of the top violinists of the moment (lasting fifteen years already), and she's been quite into period practice, without turning hardcore HIP.

[Jo498]

Most of Faust's recordings were on modern violin, though, and I think the historically informed label in the more narrow sense is reasonably applicable only to her more recent recordings, unless it will lose the little distinctive meaning it used to have. E.g. on the Beethoven and Schubert recordings with Melnikov, the latter also plays a normal modern piano.

[staxomega]

Most of Faust's recordings were on modern violin, though, and I think the historically informed label in the more narrow sense is reasonably applicable only to her more recent recordings, unless it will lose the little distinctive meaning it used to have. E.g. on the Beethoven and Schubert recordings with Melnikov, the latter also plays a normal modern piano.

Not true:

[Jo498]

I meant the sonata recordings, I should have been a bit more clear but took it for granted that I didn't mean recordings with a larger ensemble, only the duo sonatas.

In any case, Faust has been recording since 25 years and the majority of her recordings are on a modern instrument. She has turned towards some HIP in the last ca. 10 years, probably starting with the Bach partitas or so. I am not denying that the Brahms chamber recordings also seem to be "HIP"ish. But her discography until about 2010 is not so, and she appears on many chamber recordings (live from Lars Vogt's festival etc.) with purely modern instruments.

[Brian]

By the way, Melnikov now collects period pianos (you can hear his 1885 Pleyel on his new Chopin cello sonata performance with Queyras, and on the Franck disc with Faust).

[staxomega]

I meant the sonata recordings, I should have been a bit more clear but took it for granted that I didn't mean recordings with a larger ensemble, only the duo sonatas.

In any case, Faust has been recording since 25 years and the majority of her recordings are on a modern instrument. She has turned towards some HIP in the last ca. 10 years, probably starting with the Bach partitas or so. I am not denying that the Brahms chamber recordings also seem to be "HIP"ish. But her discography until about 2010 is not so, and she appears on many chamber recordings (live from Lars Vogt's festival etc.) with purely modern instruments.

She was an "informed*" performer going back to her first recordings, she just didn't necessarily play on period instruments. There is no swooning glissandi or aching vibrato on any of the recordings I have from prior to 2010 (both Bartók, Janáček, Dvořák, Schubert, Szymanowski, Fauré, etc). In my opinion the style of interpretation is more telling of an artist's intentions and the impact it has on the performance than the instruments used.

*I'm not sure how much this really means, I have many discs of Bartók with the composer, dedicated to the musicians playing the works, or recorded when he was alive where the performances are far different from anything in the last 30 years.

[Mandryka]

So you have these two, Kremer and Afanassiev, come together and formulate a really distinctive vision of the music. Not an unconventional vision IMO - there's nothing here that's a shock in any way, though I should say that I don't have any prejudices about how to play Brahms really because, in truth, I'm not really so familiar with the music and its reception history. But they seem to play all the right pitches in the right order, and nothing much is inserted, it's not played in the style of the baroque or music by Rihm.

So not shocking for me at least. Nonetheless it's full of surprises, nuances, ideas. In the case of the keyboard playing, bold ideas too. Afanassiev has a penchant for taking the music apart and then putting it together again in a slightly unexpected way. But there's nothing new there - I mean, deconstructing music is a familiar technique, Gould did it, Rübsam did it. And the tempos are never hurried, again a familiar technique. The whole thing results in a revelation, like a close up picture of a something minuscule in nature is a revelation. Or think Freda Kahlo.

Beautifully executed, and they're so clearly both singing from the same hymnsheet about this. That's maybe the thing I like the most - the sense of two musicians coming together on a shared project.

I think it's probably in some sense a "great" recording, without the connotations of "last word" but just  a magnificent document, important in so far as any of this is important. It's a record of a masterpiece in the of art of interpretation.

And it's superbly well engineered to boot!

[Jo498]

Afanassiev/Kremer are very slow, so I'd say they are not conventional (although maybe compared to some things they, or esp. the pianist did in later recordings of other music). I don't remember exactly, I think I found the slow approach most convincing in the first sonata and probably least in the more passionate 3rd.

[Karl Henning]

Afanassiev/Kremer are very slow, so I'd say they are not conventional (although maybe compared to some things they, or esp. the pianist did in later recordings of other music). I don't remember exactly, I think I found the slow approach most convincing in the first sonata and probably least in the more passionate 3rd.

I should revisit those!

[Mandryka]

Afanassiev/Kremer are very slow, so I'd say they are not conventional (although maybe compared to some things they, or esp. the pianist did in later recordings of other music). I don't remember exactly, I think I found the slow approach most convincing in the first sonata and probably least in the more passionate 3rd.

Afanassiev and Kremer's  recordings are beyond recommended or unrecommended. One likes some, is moved by many, is awed by few, is annoyed by others... no matter. They "exist" in the way the thoughts of a great philosopher exist, whether one agrees with them or not, whether he likes them or not.  ⓒ Mandryka.

I love their op 108, I can't imagine needing more passion, but as I said, I hardly know the music, it's not something I listen to more than once a decade maybe!

[Madiel]

Afanassiev and Kremer's  recordings are beyond recommended or unrecommended.

Pfffft.

Consider getting a job writing liner notes.

[Jo498]

I was merely taking issue with "not unconventional" for interpretations that are about 30% slower than typical/average although I was wrong above in such that the d minor sonata does not seem as far off the average than the others (I have not had a chance to re-listen and compare, just going by playing times). AFAIR the Brahms is by far the most unconvential compared with Kremer's Beethoven, Schumann, Prokofiev, and even the Schubert fantasy (also with Afanassiev).
That said, it might not reach the heights of excentricity of some of Afanassiev's solo recordings.

[Mandryka]

It would be nice to understand Afamassiev's thinking better. I don't know whether these notes from his late Brahms CD provide any illumination. Can anyone read them?

https://i.ibb.co/FWvp1Dm/Capture.jpg

[Florestan]

It would be nice to understand Afamassiev's thinking better. I don't know whether these notes from his late Brahms CD provide any illumination. Can anyone read them?

https://i.ibb.co/FWvp1Dm/Capture.jpg

Ha ha ha! I once got in my Yahoo mail box a message whose subject title was (in Romanian): Three Very Cool Chinese Jokes. When I clicked it, I got exactly the above. Well, maybe not exactly but it did look like very Chinese to me. Okay, maybe Japanese. Certainly not Korean, though --- the Korean letters do look like the phonetic alphabet they actually are. 

I remember Brian's stating many moons ago that Afanassiev was a madman.

[Jo498]

I listened to op.78 and 100 with Kremer/Afanassiev. Despite the extremely broad tempi in all movements, op.78 works very well. I am less convinced by the A major where the outer movements seem rather leaden to me.

As for the liner notes, I think I read some of them (not sure if it was that late Brahms disc, probably late Schubert?) years ago when there was a translation (Afanassiev certainly didn't write them in japanese) and they were quite crazy and not very illuminating.

[Mandryka]

I remember Brian's stating many moons ago that Afanassiev was a madman.

I think that if he did say that, it was stupid.

[Mandryka]

quite crazy

In what way?

[Madiel]

I think that if he did say that, it was stupid.

Other people are not required to drink the Kool-Aid.