Diapason Brahms chamber music

[Al Eisner]

Diapason magazine has apparently this year been releasing a number of CD
sets (8 in all, of which a couple may not quite be released yet) covering
particular parts of the repertory. So far as I can tell, they are
released through Challenge Classics, consist almost entirely of
performances which are not copyright-protected (at least in France),
with selections made by a group of their own plus guest critics.

I found this from a new MDT listing of a complete set of Brahms chamber
works:
http://www.mdt.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/169197/s/brahms-musique-de-chambre-diapason-12cds/category/12/
I've extracted the list of works and performers (in some cases two
performances for a given work) and appended it below.

A full list of the releases, as well as customer reviews, can be found
at www.amazon.fr and searching for "La discothèque idéale de Diapason"
(MDT only has four of them, but at very good prices if one ignores
shipping.) For example, there is a Beethoven symphony set, with two
or three performance per symphony. For example, the Eroica with
Erich Kleiber (Concertgebouw, 1950) and Karajan (Philharmonia, 1952),
and the Ninth with Furtwängler (both 1942 and 1951) and Schuricht (1958).

I already have some (a minority) of the Brahms performances, but the
price for the set is very attractive. I haven't yet looked at the
details or reviews to know anything about the recorded sound, but
I'd guess that, given the source, good production values were at
least aimed for. (I could be wrong!)

Johannes Brahms
Brahms musique de chambre

CD1

Sonate pour violon et piano no 1 en sol majeur op. 78
Josef Suk (violon), Josef Hala. 1956

Sonate pour violon et piano no 2 en la majeur op. 100
Adolf Busch (violon), Rudolf Serkin (piano). 1932

Sonate pour violon et piano no 3 en ré mineur op. 108
Gioconda De Vito (violon), Edwin Fischer (piano). 1954

Scherzo en ut mineur WoO 2 (de la Sonate "F.A.E."
Nathan Milstein (violon), Carlo Bussotti (piano). 1954

BONUS
Regenlied op. 59 no 3
Elisabeth Grümmer (soprano), Gerald Moore (piano). 1959

Wie Melodien zieht es mir
Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer
Lisa Della Casa (soprano), Karl Hudez (piano). 1952

Auf dem Kirchhofe
Lotte Lehmann (soprano), Paul Ulanowsky (piano). 1941

CD2

Sonate pour violoncelle et piano no 1 en mi mineur op. 38
Gregor Piatigorsky (violoncelle), Arthur Rubinstein (piano). 1936
Janos Starker (violoncelle), György Sebök (piano). 1959

Sonate pour violoncelle et piano no 2 en fa majeur op. 99
Janos Starker (violoncelle), György Sebök (piano). 1959

CD3
Sonate pour clarinette et piano no 1 en fa mineur op. 120 no 1
Sonate pour clarinette et piano no 2 en mi bémol majeur op. 120 no 2
Reginald Kell (clarinette), Mieczyslaw Horszowski (piano). 1949

Sonate pour alto et piano no 1 en fa mineur op. 120 no 1
William Primrose (alto), Jesus Maria Sanroma (piano). 1939
Sonate pour alto et piano no 2 en mi bémol majeur op. 120 no 2
William Primrose (alto), Rudolf Firkusny (piano). 1958

CD4
Quintette pour clarinette et cordes en si mineur op. 115
Leopod Wlach (clarinette), Wiener Konzerthaus Quartett. 1953

Trio pour clarinette, violoncelle et piano en la mineur op. 114
Reginald Kell (clarinette), Frank Miller (violoncelle), Mieczyslaw Horszowski
(piano). 1950

CD5
Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle no 1 en si majeur op. 8
Edwin Fischer (piano), Wolfgang Schneiderhan (violon), Enrico Mainardi
(violoncelle). 1954

Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle no 2 en ut majeur op. 87
Gary Graffman (piano), Berl Senofsky (violon), Shirley Trepel (violoncelle).
1959

BONUS
Sonate pour violon et piano no 2 en la majeur op. 100
Szymon Goldberg (violon), Artur Balsam (piano). 1953

CD6
Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle no 3 en ut mineur op. 101
Eugene Istomin (piano), Isaac Stern (violon), Leonard Rose (violoncelle). 1966

Trio pour piano, violon et cor en mi bémol majeur op. 40
Rudolf Serkin (piano), Michael Tree (violon), Myron Bloom (cor). 1960
Rudolf Serkin (piano), Adolf Busch (violon), Audrey Brain (cor). 1933

CD7
Quatuor à cordes no 1 en ut mineur op. 51 no 1
Quatuor Amadeus. 1959

Quatuor à cordes no 2 en la mineur op. 51 no 2
Quatuor de Hollywood. 1952

CD8
Quatuor à cordes no 3 en si bémol majeur op. 67
Quatuor de Budapest. 1933

Quintette pour piano et cordes en fa mineur op. 34
Rudolf Serkin (piano), Quatuor Busch. 1938

CD9
Quatuor pour piano et cordes no 1 en sol mineur op. 25
Rudolf Serkin (piano), Quatuor Busch. 1949
Arthur Rubinstein (piano), Quatuor Pro Arte. 1932

CD10
Quatuor pour piano et cordes no 2 en la majeur op. 26
Clifford Curzon (piano), Quatuor de Budapest. 1952

Quatuor pour piano et cordes no 3 en ut mineur op. 60
Arthur Rubinstein (piano), Quatuor Guarneri. 1967

CD11
Quintette à cordes no 1 en fa majeur op. 88
Quatuor de Budapest, Alfred Hobday (alto). 1937

Quintette à cordes no 2 en sol majeur op. 111
Quatuor de Budapest, Hans Mahlke (alto). 1932

BONUS
Sonate pour violon et piano no 3 en ré mineur op. 108
Joseph Szigeti (violon), Egon Petri (piano). 1935

CD12
Sextuor à cordes no 1 en si bémol majeur op. 18
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Ensemble. 1992

Sextuor à cordes no 2 en sol majeur op. 36
Pina Carmirelli, Jon Toth (violons), Caroline Levine, Philipp Naegele (altos),
Dorothy Reichenberger, Fortunato Arico (violoncelles). 1967

Diapason 12cds DIAP06

--
Al Eisner

[cooper...@gmail.com]

If the transfers are even halfway decent this set is an astounding collection, even more so at the ridiculously low price. I would have ordered it already if I didn't own practically everything that it contains. Not much to complain about, although they could have done better justice to op. 51 (Janáček, Weller, Tokyo, etc.). There are too many highlights to name, but one that might be less well-known than the others is the Carmirelli-led op. 36, a wonderful performance that doesn't sound like any other that I know. SE and I have conducted a friendly argument for years about whether the opening of the pre-war Budapest op. 67 is too fast. I think it's thrilling; most other performances sound half-speed to me.

Alan

[Al Eisner]

>> Al Eisner
>
> If the transfers are even halfway decent this set is an astounding collection, even more so at the ridiculously low price. I would have ordered it already if I didn't own practically everything that it contains. Not much to complain about, although they could have done better justice to op. 51 (Janá?ek, Weller, Tokyo, etc.). There are too many highlights to name, but one that might be less well-known than the others is the Carmirelli-led op. 36, a wonderful performance that doesn't sound like any other that I know. SE and I have conducted a friendly argument for years about whether the opening of the pre-war Budapest op. 67 is too fast. I think it's thrilling; most other performances sound half-speed to me.
>
> Alan

Thanks. No, I've never heard that Op. 36. I do separately have the
terrific Janacek Op. 51. And I recently picked up (but haven't listened
yet to) the pre-war Budapest set on Biddulph (an Amazon seller was
finally offering it used at a decent price). I can't resist Brahms
chamber music. As for price, Amazon US (and presumably Presto soon)
also has it, but MDT may be cheapest even with their shipping cost.

I haven't looked much through the contents of the other Diapason sets yet,
but the Mozart chamber set also looks promising. It in fact includes
the Goldberg/Kraus sonatas we've been discussing elsewhere (six of them)
along with sonatas with Szigeti or Grumiaux, the Keifetz et al. K563,
string quintets shared by Griller and Budapest/Katims (2 each) and
Amadeus (1), string quartetsshared by Amadeus and Juilliard, and so on.
--
Al Eisner

[cooper...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the nice reply, Al. A couple of other "sleepers" in the set are on CD 5: the Graffman/Senofsky/Trepel op. 87 is otherwise available on CD only in the big Graffman box, and it is excellent. As for the Goldberg/Balsam op. 100, there's a great story about how it came to be reissued on Testament, along with the other two sonatas. Here's the story as Tom Deacon related it here about a decade ago (lightly edited):

<begin quotation>Long thought to have been lost, the master tapes of Szymon Goldberg's legendary 3 Brahms sonatas have finally shown up on CD, courtesy of Stuart Brown and Testament.

I first heard these performances at the home of the late Bob Kerr in Vancouver back in the 1980s and gloried in what appeared to me to be the very definition of chamber music. The give and take between Balsam and Goldberg is a model for other "star" violinists who would want to hog the limelight in this music. They should, perhaps, be told that Brahms was a pianist!

Later I managed to acquire the LPs on American Decca. I implored Tadaatsu Atarashi to try and find the tapes in LA. No luck. Even when all the Decca tapes were consolidated in Hannover the Goldberg Brahms were not among them. Further searches in LA turned up nothing.

And then, out of the blue, we learned that our Japanese "colleagues" had spirited the masters away to Japan. What to do, Lord only knows. Goldberg remarried a Japanese woman and the Japanese have always been sort of grateful for this by continuing to celebrate his genius through various releases. I have two lovely boxes of them from EMI, I think.

My colleagues at DG said: "Oh, don't worry, Tom. We'll get the tapes back eventually and release them".

NOT!

It would appear that Stuart Brown at Testament made DG and offer and lo and behold, they are out on CD at last. Time to grab this release. It is one for the ages: Testament - SBT 1357 - is not to be missed. <end quotation>

Alan

[Herman]

On Friday, December 2, 2016 at 3:24:05 PM UTC+1, cooper...@gmail.com wrote:

>The give and take between Balsam and Goldberg is a model for other "star" violinists who would want to hog the limelight in this music. They should, perhaps, be told that Brahms was a pianist!
>

So interesting; I'm getting this one, too.

I'd just like to say that the point of the violin sonatas is not the piano; it's the harmony and contrast between the two instruments.

Particularly the aptly numbered op.100 is just the ultimate nec plus ultra in this regard.

Brahms is one of the supreme chamber music composers!

[MiNe109]

On 12/2/16 8:24 AM, cooper...@gmail.com wrote:
> As for the Goldberg/Balsam op. 100, there's a great story about how
> it came to be reissued on Testament, along with the other two
> sonatas. Here's the story as Tom Deacon related it here about a
> decade ago (lightly edited):

<snip>

I'm thankful for spotify! Where once I would read about these worthy but
generally unobtainable recordings and hope to recognize the opportunity
to hear them when they did turn up, I now can search and hear almost
immediately.

The first movement of the A Major was ideal for me: poised, beautiful, warm.

Stephen

[Johannes Roehl]

I already have all the Busch and Rubinstein items included but I might eventually get it because even 3 worthy discs would be worth that price. What I find slightly puzzling is that apparently neither the 3rd trio nor the 3rd piano quartet were deemed worthy of inclusion and instead we get alternative versions of some violin sonatas and the first piano quartet.

[Herman]

On Saturday, December 3, 2016 at 11:33:57 AM UTC+1, Johannes Roehl wrote:

> What I find slightly puzzling is that apparently neither the 3rd trio nor the 3rd piano quartet were deemed worthy of inclusion and instead we get alternative versions of some violin sonatas and the first piano quartet.

and those two 3ds are really top pieces.

[geo...@begos.ca]

On Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 1:55:15 PM UTC-5, Al Eisner wrote:

8 sets are available on qobuz for streaming and download

http://tinyurl.com/zp7ybbu

at about 20 Euro a set.

[Paul]

Can anyone comment on source/quality of the transfers?

[George M.]

A little bit of a warning to potential qobuz.cm customers, there are 3 performances missing from stream and download, all seem related to newer Copyrights. I've send an inquiry to qobuz.

Missing
CD 06
Trio pour piano, violon et violoncelle n o 3 en ut mineur op. 101
1. Allegro energico
2. Presto non assai
3. Andante grazioso
4. Allegro molto

Eugene Istomin (piano), Isaac Stern (violon),
Leonard Rose (violoncelle). 1966

(P) Originally Recorded 1966. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
« Avec l’aimable autorisation de SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT France S.A.S ».

CD 10
Quatuor pour piano et cordes n o 3

en ut mineur op. 60

5. Allegro non troppo
6. Scherzo : Allegro
7. Andante
8. Allegro comodo

Arthur Rubinstein (piano),
Quatuor Guarneri. 1967

(P) Originally Recorded 1967. All Rights Reserved by BMG Music
« Avec l’aimable autorisation de SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT France S.A.S ».

CD 12
Sextuor à cordes n o 2

en sol majeur op. 36

5. Allegro non troppo
6. Scherzo : Allegro non troppo
7. Poco adagio
8. Poco allegro

Pina Carmirelli, Jon Toth (violons),
Caroline Levine, Philipp Naegele (altos),
Dorothy Reichenberger, Fortunato Arico (violoncelles). 1967

« Avec l’aimable autorisation de SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT France S.A.S »

[Al Eisner]

>> If the transfers are even halfway decent this set is an astounding collection, even more so at the ridiculously low price. I would have ordered it already if I didn't own practically everything that it contains. Not much to complain about, although they could have done better justice to op. 51 (Janá?ek, Weller, Tokyo, etc.). There are too many highlights to name, but one that might be less well-known than the others is the Carmirelli-led op. 36, a wonderful performance that doesn't sound like any other that I know. SE and I have conducted a friendly argument for years about whether the opening of the pre-war Budapest op. 67 is too fast. I think it's thrilling; most other performances sound half-speed to me.

>>
>
> I already have all the Busch and Rubinstein items included but I might eventually get it because even 3 worthy discs would be worth that price. What I find slightly puzzling is that apparently neither the 3rd trio nor the 3rd piano quartet were deemed worthy of inclusion and instead we get alternative versions of some violin sonatas and the first piano quartet.

No. all Brahms chamber music works are present. Check the list (above)
again. (See CD 6 and 10.)
--
Al Eisner

[Al Eisner]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2016, Paul wrote:

> Can anyone comment on source/quality of the transfers?

I raised the same issue in my posts on this, and suggested that perhaps
the customer reviews on amazon.fr (quite a few) may have some such
information. However, I haven't yet had a chance to check. (It's
either reading the French, which I'm a bit slow at, or using Google
translate, which isn't entirely reliable. I'll get to it at some
point if no-one else tells us.)
--
Al Eisner

[MiNe109]

It's on spotify, probably in higher quality than Amazon samples. I
heard a few tracks and found them listenable other than a squeaky chair
in a piano trio. However, the absence of noise and hiss suggests they
are filtered. I can't compare them to other issues.

Stephen

[Oscar]

On Friday, December 2, 2016 at 10:22:32 AM, herman wrote:
>
> Brahms is one of the supreme chamber music composers!

Composers. Period. Brahms was a boss.

[Johannes Roehl]

Thanks! I was misled by the mp3s at amazon that actually lack these pieces as well as the 2nd sextet for some reason.

[Al Eisner]

On Sat, 3 Dec 2016, geo...@begos.ca wrote:

[re. the eight Diapason sets, including the forementioned Brahms]

> 8 sets are available on qobuz for streaming and download
>
> http://tinyurl.com/zp7ybbu
>
> at about 20 Euro a set.

The MDT ex-VAT price for the CD sets is slightly *less* than this
download cost. Adding shipping to the US, each set is about $21 plus $6.
I've ordered just the Brahms. I found a couple of comments regarding
recorded sound in the amazon.fr reviews (I only checked those for the
Brahms and Mozart chamber sets) which say the sound is good, but of
course I have no idea what these customers regard as "good". At the
above price, it seemed well worth taking the risk. Comments, by the
way, also indicate a useful booklet. (I'm not sure if it is translated.)
--
Al Eisner

[Al Eisner]

The Brahms set listed below arrived from MDT a few days ago. Just a quick
glance so far: There is a booklet, entirely in French (no translation),
which for each work appears to consist of one of their critics explaining
the reason for the choice of performance vs. other possible options. One
source of annoyance is the lack of track timings; unless I locate them,
I'll have to extract them by computer. This seems a bit sloppy, but then
it was very cheap. :) In any case, I'm looking forward to listening.

Al

[Johannes Roehl]

Am Mittwoch, 4. Januar 2017 20:51:50 UTC+1 schrieb Al Eisner:
> The Brahms set listed below arrived from MDT a few days ago. Just a quick
> glance so far: There is a booklet, entirely in French (no translation),
> which for each work appears to consist of one of their critics explaining
> the reason for the choice of performance vs. other possible options.

I also got the set a few days ago. Apparently all recordings >50 years old were remasters/transfers by "Circé", a Paris recording/mastering studio; only 4 recordings are credited "with kind permission" to their current labels: Rubinstein/Guarneri op.60, Stern/Istomin/Rose op.101 and the sextets. I have only compared one piece to another issue, namely the 1933 Busch/Brain/Serkin Horn trio to the one in the "Busch box" and cannot hear significant differences. Other stuff sound good (e.g. Goldberg/Balsam op.100) or not so good (Kell/horszowski op.120) without having any other transfers to compare them with.
I wonder if anyone has done more comparison. In any case, the set seems a good deal because, even if better transfers were available, they'd be long out of print (e.g. Budapest pre-war opp. 67,88,111) and/or it would be doubtful if other transfers were any better.

[Ricardo Jimenez]

There is a 4 disk set on Spotify that is supposed to be Diapason VI.
It seems to have most of the chamber music but there are are some
important ones missing like the second string sextet. Is this the
same as what you are discussing here or is there another, more
complete issue?

[Johannes Roehl]

The details are above. The CD set is complete as listed in the first message above. For some reason the mp3 downloads at amazon are missing the second sextet and (I think) the 3rd trio and piano quartetm the same seems true of Spotify.