"This is a wonderful set of beautiful brahms. I bought this on the recommendation of an old fellow at a classical music store in Wilmington. It goes to show you don't need a brand/star name for excellent music. What a bargain! This is one of the last CD sets I'd give up."
Constantly on the turntable
Maureen | 09/25/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I love this CD! The opus 60 is amazing. The cello solo that starts the Andante is so pure and unaffected, with beautiful intonation unmasked by excessive vibrato -- SO much different than the very emotive Yo-Yo Ma recording -- this is the recording I prefer."
Thrilling Brahms
Gregory M. Zinkl | Chicago, IL | 08/07/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Let's get out of the way what's wrong with the recording: the engineers have placed their microphones way too close to the musicians. And there's a break between discs, and the labeling (on my copy) is off. Have you read that? Good, that's all that's wrong with these disks. And none of these faults are serious enough to discourage would-be purchasers.That's becuase this is music-making of the highest order by musicians well-in-tune with each other. Glazer was a wonderful pianist, and it shows here. The violinist's tone is perhaps a shade wiry, but somehow it all plays into this group's performance.A bargain, even if it were at full price!"
Review From A Former Student of Frank Glazer
Joseph A. Streisfeld | New York, NY USA | 02/03/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I rate this recording very highly, just as so many others have. I studied at Eastman with Frank Glazer (from 1966 to 1972)and was indeed privileged to have turned pages for Mr. Glazer at the recording sessions for these Brahms Piano Quartets back in 1968. What a thrilling experience for me back then. I have never tired of these performances and they do illustrate all of the principles that I was taught about music-making."
ONE OF TWO ESSENTIAL BRAHMS PIANO 4-TET SETS
Mark E. Farrington | East Syracuse, NY | 01/25/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I lived in Rochester, NY for 13 years, had contacts at the Eastman School of Music, and was assured by some "old timers" that I hadn't really HEARD chamber music at its finest, because I had missed the legendary Faculty Piano Quartet based there in the late 1960s. I suspected it was all just some musicological Urban Myth - until I heard this set of the three Brahms Piano Quartets. What unself-conscious virtuosity, what craftmanship, what warmth, what empathy ! Nobody takes any "star turns" - it's all about the MUSIC.
Several reviewers have noticed the excessive forward placing of the strings. Unfortunately, this is especially true in the First Piano Quartet which, depending on your playback equipment, can be hard on the ears. But the problem is greatly diminished in the other two Quartets.
The gem of this Eastman set is the Second Quartet - the "Apolloian bookend" to the more "Dionysian" First Quartet. (See Malcolm MacDonald's BRAHMS for a superb analysis of these works - not to mention a very good "read.") Here is epic, spacious lyricism which picks up where Schubert left off - and not entirely unrelated to what Bruckner achieved in his F Major String Quintet. The Eastman Quartet paces the whole work flawlessly, led by Frank Glazer's silken keyboard. (Only perhaps Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet are on the same par.)
The "other" essential set of the Brahms Piano Quartets is only available as a JVC / BMG import from Japan (BVCC-37326-7)...This is the even more legendary "Festival Quartet" consisting of Szymon Goldberg (violin), William Primrose (viola), Nikolai Graudan (cello, in fact the solo cellist of the pre-war Berlin Philharmonic), and pianist Victor Babin (husband-half of the fabled Vronksy & Babin).
The "Festival" First Quartet has none of the Eastman's "balancing" problems, and if anything is more leisurely paced, while still taut enough to maintain drama. (I even prefer this to the ballyhooed Gilels/Amadeus DG version of the early 1970s.) In fact, so empathicaly felt is this performance, so "locked-in" to each other are these performers, that it is the only version which can make me "forget" the later Schoenbergian orchestration of this work.
The "Festival" Second Quartet, alas, falls down - which is why you need the Eastman set to offset it...It's played and paced well enough, but unlike the First & Third Quartets, it was recorded in RCA's New York "Studio A" (whatever that was) - and the sound is almost as hard on the ears as the Eastman's First Quartet - to the point where it almost obscures the interpretation. Not even a "Living Stereo" RCA recording, remastered at 96 Hz in 24-bit-sound, can overcome the harsh, boxy ambiance. (The other two Quartets were recorded in the far more sympathetic acoustics of Manhattan's Town Hall)
The Third Quartet, Brahm's answer to "Werther" by his own admission, is a restless musical journey through his ambivalent love for Klara Schumann - the one great - yet ultimately unattainable - love of his life. In fact, the very first theme is a "Klara" motiv which is put through as many permutations as any motivs in TRISTAN. (Again, see Malcolm MacDonald's BRAHMS.) So intertwined are the personal and "abstract compositional" threads in this work, that it took Brahms over 20 years to complete it - alongside his First Symphony, which took as long. But it turned out as passionate and as finely honed as either the First Symphony or the F minor Piano Quintet. That is to say, HERE ARE THE GOODS. Both the Eastman and the "Festival" Quartets deliver these goods in beautifully recorded, sinewy interpretations in which the most dangerous emotional and spiritual territory is covered - but not once do you fall off the "horse" and into the adjacent "ravine". To my ears the "Festival" version is more overtly passionate, even reckless, but the Eastman version is just a tad more finely played and stands up even better to repeated listening. Still, the "gentle listener" would hardly go wrong with either performance.
So there you have it. Either set has a superb Third, but the Eastman is essential for the Second Quartet, and you must find the "Festival" set for a definitive First. "But wait...There's more" :
Did I mention that the JVC set also contains the Festival Quartet's fabled Schubert Trout Quintet (with Stuart Sankey added on double bass)? Yes, it won't be cheap - and these are not exactly lush, prosperous times. But a Stateside release of this treasure is unlikely, and if you can raise the necessary 'ducats' for it by, say, eliminating 2 weeks' worth of unnecessary spending, you will be repaid "many fold."
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1
