I have always been a selective fan of the music of Johannes Brahms. Too often the textures are too muddy for my taste. A good friend sent me a CD of Brahms chamber music for my birthday, and I listened to it with pleasure. The record company is Supraphon; still a recording company and not just a label name like so many others in the business. Supraphon employs sound engineers who also know about classical music. The players are the Pavel Haas Quartet; one of the best around today. The pianist in the Op 34 piano quintet in F minor is Boris Giltburg, also one of the best around today. A CD that has everything going for it.
To my great surprise – I who thought I knew everything – the Op 111 string quintet in G major was new to me. My loss; it's a lovely work, but string quintets often are (viz Mozart and Schubert). Needless to say, I found the playing and recording excellent. Pavel Nikl provides the second viola for the quintet. The F minor piano quintet is familiar; I have several other recordings of the work. It receives a superb, well-balanced recording here, but it's a work I like less than the string quintet. The piano part often muddies the texture; I'm often ill at ease when a piano joins a string quartet. Strings together make a nice, homogenous sound.
Anyway, a good 70 minutes of fine, classical 19th century music presented in the best possible light. And also bravo to Supraphon for a fine piece of sound engineering.
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