Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
String Sextet No. 1 in B flat major, op. 18 [37:24]
String Sextet No. 2 in G major, op. 36 [38:15]
Belcea Quartet, Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello)
rec. March 2021, Konzerthaus, Vienna
ALPHA 792 [75:54]
The Belcea Quartet with violist Tabea Zimmerman and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras have come together to play Brahms’ pair of string sextets. All are renowned players whom I have several times enjoyed seeing in live performance.
Brahms was surrounded by chamber music from his youth and wrote for the genre throughout his career. A gifted pianist, he would often play the piano part himself. His earliest compositions included chamber works, a number of which are now lost, through to his pair of clarinet sonatas from 1891 that number amongst his final works.
Brahms’ two string sextets, op. 18 and op. 36 both in four movements and scored for pairs of violins, violas and cellos are relatively early works completed in 1860 and 1865 respectively. They had few precedents, the best-known being Luigi Boccherini’s set of six written around 1776, and Louis Spohr’s string sextet, op. 140 from 1848. In Brahms’ two string sextets we may relish the intimacy of the genre melded with the fuller sonorities of the additional lower register instruments. Standing out for me in the sextets is how Brahms contrasts the characters of ebullience and melancholy in his rich and colourful writing.
In 1859, during work on his first string sextet, Brahms received encouragement and technical advice from renowned violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, a well-connected musician who founded and led the Joachim Quartet. Prior to the completion of the work in 1860, Brahms was dealing with the emotional difficulties of his complex relationship with Clara Schumann, the celebrated concert pianist and composer who was widowed in 1856, and his contrition following the end of his engagement to young soprano Agathe von Siebold, to whom, despite his love for her, he did not wish to be tied down. It is a work steeped in romantic yearning. Particularly notable is the second movement with its rather bleak theme and set of six variations, a form Brahms savoured and would use to considerable effect throughout his career. Under the leadership of Corina Belcea in the opening movement Allegro ma non troppo, the players here excel in providing expert momentum with the waltz and the Ländler components, and in the Andante ma moderato, the mood shifts of the variations are adeptly handled.
Around five years later, in 1865, Brahms completed his second string sextet, by which time he was living in Vienna. The bulk of the composition took place in the summer of 1864 when he met up with Clara Schumann and her family at Lichtenthal outside Baden-Baden while he was staying in the home of Anton Rubinstein, the renowned concert pianist and composer. Brahms had broken up with his fiancée Agathe von Siebold some five years previously, yet that was clearly still troubling him, as he spells out her name as a motif in the opening movement. He said writing the sextet was ‘cathartic’; nevertheless, one wonders if it did finally absolve him from the guilt of his troubled conscience over Agathe.
Brahms’ love of the variations form returns again in the third movement Poco Adagio, employing what is widely considered to be an indistinctive theme; the Belcea and her players execute the changes in temperament and tonality of the five variations outstandingly well. Marked Poco Allegro, the final movement alternates two themes, one vivacious and the second easy-going; there are also fugal passages and lengthy, song-like lines. The players rise to the challenges of the sextet impressively, playing very persuasively and with great commitment and character.
The playing of the augmented Belcea Quartet throughout is highly accomplished: balanced, expressive, with exemplary ensemble and a strong sense of engagement. This is a studio recording from the world-famous Konzerthaus, Vienna and I have nothing but praise for the sound quality. The booklet includes a helpful essay by Jean-Michel Molkhou.
Top of my list of recordings of the Brahms string sextets is the captivating live account from the 2016
Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival played by Renaud Capuçon (violin), Christoph Koncz (violin), Gérard Caussé (viola), Marie Chilemme (viola), Gautier Capuçon (cello) and Clemens Hagen (cello) on Erato (review), but this Alpha recording is out of the top drawer, too; even if it doesn’t displace the Erato release, it is definitely worthy of standing alongside it.
These two string sextets were clearly very personal to Brahms and express sentiments that comes straight from the heart. Although the second string sextet is more overtly expressive than the first, both have the same warm generosity of spirit and compelling character which are captured very successfully here by the Belcea Quartet with Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras.
Michael Cookson
Previous review: Ralph Moore
