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Gifts for... Chamber and Instrumental Music enthusiasts
Our latest gift guide offers ideas to excite your chamber music-loving family and friends. From the latest string quartet, piano trio and instrumental recordings and box sets, to books about Beethoven, brass instruments and Stradivarius, we've selected some perfect presents for them to enjoy.
New & Award-winning Recordings
In their June issue, Gramophone said: 'In Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk’s hands, these sonatas’ staggering invention is impossible to ignore. The musicians’ success comes, at least in part, from scrupulous attention to the composer’s markings in matters of dynamics and articulation…They can drive the music hard in fast movements, although their playing always breathes naturally.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ibragimova and Tiberghien exhibit an instinctive empathy on their latest collaboration on Hyperion, applying the low-cholesterol approach which made their Franck Sonata earlier this year such a winner to the Brahms sonatas: clarity and transparency are the orders of the day here, with vibrato, portamenti and rubato kept to a minimum, but nothing feels undernourished or underseasoned in these illuminating, immensely invigorating performances.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Debussy: Les Trois Sonates, The Late Works
Isabelle Faust (violin), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Tanguy de Williencourt (piano), Magali Mosnier (flute), Antoine Tamestit viola), Xavier de Maistre (harp), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Javier Perianes (piano)
This outstanding selection of late chamber works by Debussy, from artists including Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, Antoine Tamestit, Xavier de Maistre and Jean-Guihen Queyras (among others), has won numerous awards since its release in November 2018 - including scooping the Chamber prize at both the Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine Awards. The latter described it as ‘one of the most captivating releases of the Debussy centenary year’.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following their critically-acclaimed accounts of piano quintets by Schumann, Franck and Shostakovich, Marc-André Hamelin and the Takács Quartet team up to explore the chamber music of Ernő Dohnányi, opening with the 1895 quintet which was composed whilst he was still in his teens, and piqued Brahms’s interest so much that he requested a private performance.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
For their latest recording, the Doric String Quartet turn to Britten’s works for string quartet. In their May issue, Gramophone said ‘The performances are all superbly judged and controlled, balancing fragility with strength, restraint with great depth of feeling… The early Divertimenti, played with considerable wit and elegance, provide some much-needed contrast to the intensity of it all…This is a major cycle, engaging and profound in equal measure, and you need to hear it.’
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Prague-based Stamic Quartet give the world premieres of the three (or rather two-and-a-half) string quartets which the Czech composer and conductor Karel Kovařovic penned in the 1880s and 90s, shortly before being appointed music director of the National Theatre Prague, where he later conducted the premiere of Rusalka. Dvořák’s influence abounds in the A minor quartet which was dedicated to him in 1887 (particularly in the memorable furiant scherzo), and there are whispers of Schubert in the lovely Andante con variazioni.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded live at Carnegie Hall last April, this recital features Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, and the Dvořák Piano Quintet; reviewing the performance, The New York Times observed that ‘these strong, veteran players seemed ideally matched with the commanding pianist, and they had evidently achieved instant rapport.’
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Following on from their ‘fresh, intelligent and strikingly stylish’ (Gramophone) accounts of the First and Third Piano Trios earlier this year, the Leonore Trio fill in the gap with this recording of the Second Piano Trio, premiered in 1884; it’s coupled here with the 1879 Piano Quartet, which prompted The Times to describe Parry as ‘a musician who is not afraid to obey the dictates of his own inner consciousness’.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Steven Isserlis is joined by pianist Olli Mustonen for an intelligently-programmed selection of Russian works for cello and piano. The centrepiece of the recording is Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata, which as performed here moves impressively between moments of thoughtful introspection and manic virtuosity. It is coupled with the less familiar but no less remarkable sonata by Shostakovich’s contemporary, Dmitry Kabalevsky, alongside a handful of shorter works by Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, and Prokofiev, all of which amply display the superb range of tones and colours that both musicians bring to their performance.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Czech string quartet’s mantelpiece must already be buckling under the weight of awards accumulated over the past twelve years, but their first recording of Shostakovich looks set to continue their winning streak: they summon such massive, near-symphonic sound in the autobiographical Eighth Quartet that you’d swear you were listening to Rudolf Barshai’s transcription of the work for string orchestra, yet their ability to thin their collective and individual tone down to virtually nothing captures the composer’s darkest night of the soul to devastating effect.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Tasmin Little plays Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth & Amy Beach
Tasmin Little (violin) & John Lenehan (piano)
Tasmin Little’s delightful, beautifully performed album makes an excellent case for the works of these three fascinating female composers. The soaring lyricism of Beach’s 1896 sonata and the restless energy and inventiveness of Ethel Smyth’s work from nine years earlier are projected with such conviction that it seems incredible that this music isn’t a staple on recital-programmes everywhere.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The Jupiter Project: Mozart in the nineteenth-century drawing room
David Owen Norris (piano), Katy Bircher (flute), Caroline Balding (violin), Andrew Skidmore (cello)
Featuring arrangements of Piano Concerto No. 21 by Hummel and Johann Baptist Cramer, Clementi’s transcription of the Jupiter Symphony, and Hummel’s reduction of the Overture to Die Zauberflöte, this album aims to recreate Mozart as it would have been experienced in a nineteenth-century drawing-room.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Eschewing raw muscle and full-throttle vibrato, Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien bring a refreshing clarity and delicacy to César Franck’s much-recorded Violin Sonata of 1886, and make a splendid case for another, lesser-known work – Louis Vierne’s sonata from 1905/6, which yields little to its predecessor in terms of melodic invention and charm. Ysaÿe’s own Poème élégiaque (inspired by the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet) and a captivating short Nocturne by the young Lili Boulanger make for illuminating book-ends.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Weinberg - Chamber Music
Gidon Kremer (violin), Yulianna Avdeeva (piano), Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė (cello)
Gidon Kremer and friends turn to three chamber works by Mieczysław Weinberg: he and pianist Yulianna Avdeeva offer committed, impassioned performances of the Violin Sonata No. 6 and Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, the latter of which was written when the composer was just fifteen, and they are joined by cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė for an outstandingly dramatic account of the Piano Trio.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Collections and Box Sets
Beethoven: Complete Violin Sonatas, Cello Sonatas, String Trios & Piano Trios
Pinchas Zukerman (violin), Jacqueline du Pré (cello), Daniel Barenboim (piano)
Barenboim and Zukerman will be revisiting the Beethoven sonatas in concert next year to mark the composer’s 250th birthday, almost fifty years after making these landmark recordings; the Cello Sonatas were recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1970, just before Du Pré’s career was cut short by illness.
Available Format: 11 CDs
This 20-disc collection from the Magginis includes music by Alwyn, Bax, Bliss, Bridge, Britten, Elgar, Ireland, Moeran, Rawsthorne, Rubbra, Vaughan Williams and Walton; the recordings have been praised in Gramophone for the ‘luminous refinement and beguiling tonal beauty’ on display.
Available Format: 20 CDs
The American pianist Emanuel Ax turned seventy in June, and this 21-CD box celebrates both his milestone birthday and his long-standing partnership with Yo-Yo Ma; released on 24th May, the collection includes their Grammy Award-winning recordings of Brahms and Beethoven cello sonatas (‘masterly performances with exceptionally vivid sound’ - Gramophone), and works by Strauss, Schumann, Britten, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and John Corigliano.
Available Format: 21 CDs
Books about Chamber Music
A Player's Guide to Chamber Music offers advice on what chamber music is available, and helps players to identify what is suitable for them (and their ensemble) to play. It covers music from the seventeenth to the later twentieth century and all instrumental combinations, including strings, piano, wind instruments, duet sonatas, and baroque ensembles. Difficulty ratings are provided, and the technical and musical aspects of playing are discussed; works suitable for less experienced players are also highlighted.
Available Format: Book
Using the history of both the Takács Quartet and Beethoven's quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre (first violinist of the Takács since 1993) recounts the exhilarating challenge of tackling Beethoven's sixteen string quartets. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the daily life of a quartet, vividly depicting the necessary creative tension between individual and group expression, and how four people can enjoy making music together over a long period of time. Suitable for novices and chamber music enthusiasts alike, Dusinberre illuminates the variety and inherent contradictions of Beethoven's quartets, and shows that engaging with this radical music continues to be as invigorating now as it was for its first performers and audiences.
Available Format: Book
This Companion offers a concise and authoritative survey of the string quartet by eleven chamber music specialists. It provides coverage of a stimulating range of perspectives across four main areas: the social and musical background to the quartet's development; the most celebrated ensembles; string quartet playing, including aspects of contemporary and historical performing practice; and the mainstream repertory. Written for all string quartet enthusiasts, this guide will enrich readers' understanding and enhance their experience of listening to and performing string quartets.
Available Format: Book
A sweeping narrative of the greatest craftsman that ever lived and what became of the instruments he made. In this popular account of the Stradivari phenomena, Toby Faber explores the life and methods of this unsurpassed craftsman. Following the life of his instruments as they pass through the hands of many of the greatest musicians that have ever lived, we learn how and why they have become objects of such veneration and desire. A dramatic tale of grand artistry, fantastic music, shady dealers, forgery and science.
Available Format: Book
A founder member and pianist with both the Domus and Florestan Trios, Susan Tomes performing life has been centred on chamber music. This book combines a series of diaries describing her travels and performances with a collection of thought-provoking essays about teachers, making records, practising and rehearsing, and the particular challenges of being a concert pianist.This book 'gives you an intensely illuminating picture of the life of a pianist' (James Jolly, Gramophone).
Available Format: Book
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments
Edited by Trevor Herbert, Arnold Myers and John Wallace
Some thirty-two experts from fifteen countries join three of the world's leading authorities on the design, manufacture, performance and history of brass instruments in this first major encyclopaedia on the subject. The encyclopaedia spans the entire period from antiquity to modern times, with new and unfamiliar material that takes advantage of the latest research, and gives attention to every brass instrument and their role in classical music, jazz, popular music, and brass and military bands. The definitive guide for students, academics, musicians and music lovers.
Available Format: Book
These books offer single-source reference guides for flute players and clarinetists, with essential historical and analytical information about some of the major works written for each instrument. With contextual and theoretical insights, this extra information will enhance performance and assist in preparing and presenting concerts and recitals. Indispensable guides for teachers as well as student, professional and amateur performers.
Sheet Music for Chamber Music Enthusiasts
This box set brings together seven study score volumes of Henle Verlag's renowned editions of Beethoven's complete string quartets. Based on the Complete Beethoven Edition, these scores take into account the complex sources of the quartets, and the volumes are accompanied by detailed texts.
Available Format: Sheet Music
The Breitkopf Originals series opens up a fascinating view into the Breitkopf & Härtel publishing-house archives. The focus is on its rarities and treasures, together with milestones in the history of interpretation for works of the Classical and Romantic repertoire, presented by the most prominent artists of their time.
Beethoven String Quartets, Op. 18 Nos. 1-6 also available.
Available Format: Sheet Music
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