The mirror image of the Alban Berg's great Sextet #1
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 12/29/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For quite a few years I've loved the live performance from 1990 of Brahms' String Sextet #1 that was a collaboration between the Alban Berg Quartet, the dominant quartet in Europe for two decades, and their predecessors, the Amadeus Quartet. Each group contributed three members to make a sextet, and they play with unmathced passion. After hearing that performance, one never thinks of Brahms as a plushy Victorian again.
This recording of the Sextet #2 comes from 1987, and it matches up personnel in the same way, three from the ABQ (two violas, one cello) and three from the Amadeus (two violins, one cello). It's just as intense and joyous as the other recording, although I detect rather more slips in intonation and technical accuracy, no doubt a result of an exciting occasion. Tempos surge, bows thump, everyone plays on the edge of his seat. For some reason this recording is harder to acquire than the other; there are only used copies at Amazon, and those are imports. But even the much admired Brahms sextet recordings by Yo Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, et al on Sony pale beside these two. As fillers EMI gives us one movement from the other sextet, played as an encore. By owning both CDs you get more than two works, a curiosity yet still quite enjoyable."
