Brahms: String Quartet in A Minor & Clarinet Quintet

The Brodsky Quartet present the first of two discs that will feature Brahms’s complete string quartets. This recording includes the String Quartet Op. 51 No. 2 with the Clarinet Quintet in B minor. The second string quartet was written alongside its contrasting companion, the String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1. They were both finally published in 1873 after being held back for years by a typically self-doubting Brahms until he had brought them to his own standards of perfection. Of the two, the second is warmer, more affirmative and relaxed, with few extremes of tempo or mood. It is a work that often looks backward, incorporating hints of baroque devices in his lyrical writing. The Clarinet Quintet in B minor was the last expansive piece Brahms wrote, written after his first intended retirement from composition. It was the artistry of clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld that inspired him to return to composition and write his last four chamber works, including the quintet recorded here. It explores an atmosphere of elegy and nostalgia, producing a mood of autumnal resignation. The clarinet is rarely treated as a prima donna soloist, rather it is organically integrated into the work’s closely woven textures. Having performed this work in concert many times, the Brodsky Quartet and Michael Collins come together once again in this recording of the Brahms Quintet. The Guardian 6th March 2014 *** “Except perhaps for the stately way in which the Clarinet Quintet begins, there are no surprises in these performances. Michael Collins plays with his usual suave assurance, the Brodsky Quartet manage the Quintet and the A minor String Quartet immaculately. What is lacking, though, is any sense of necessity” BBC Music Magazine April 2014 *** “Perhaps no clarinettist around today is capable of floating a purer, smoother, more beautifully contoured melodic line than Michael Collins, and he is often heard at his best in the four late masterpieces that Brahms dedicated to the artistry of the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld.” Financial Times 5th April 2014 *** “The Brodskys offer a mellow account of the former and blend well with Collins in the latter – especially the great Adagio, which has a shimmering, ruminative quality.” Gramophone Magazine May 2014 “Both [Collins] and the Brodskys erase all possible strenuousness and poacity (always dangers in such richly contrapuntal writing) with supreme clarity, vigour and refinement. Finely recorded, this is outstanding even by Collins and the Brodsky's standards.”