Classic CD: Brahms

CD cover: Brahms

Brahms: Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano (Harmonia Mundi)

Brahms: The Hungarian Connection (Deutsche Grammophon)

Verdict: Clarinettists find new angles to present late Brahms classics

Brahms is cherished by clarinettists for a handful of works inspired by the composer's mysterious, late-in-life friendship with clarinettist Richard Muhlfeld, fondly nicknamed "Fraulein Klarinette" by bachelor Brahms.

A new Harmonia Mundi release has Lorenzo Coppola playing the two Sonatas, with pianist Andreas Staier, aiming at the same sound that Muhlfeld and Brahms might have made on their 1895 German concert tour.

Coppola's clarinet is a recreation of Muhlfeld's preferred Barmann instrument, while Staier plays an 1875 Steinway.

The two men don't opt for easy autumnal mellifluousness. Both Sonatas open with a certain edge and attitude -- Staier's booklet essay makes much of the serious contrapuntal underbelly of these works. Yet the F minor Scherzo breathes fresh folkish air and the E flat Andante woos us with ear-catching naturalness.

Staier's Six Piano Pieces of Opus 118 might not win friends among those accustomed to hearing them on a modern concert grand.

Yet others may appreciate the clean-cut restraint of the Ballade and the hushed expectancy of the final Intermezzo.

Andreas Ottensamer is Deutsche Grammophon's glamour-boy clarinetist and his new Brahms outing pursues a Hungarian connection between the 1891 Quintet and shorter transcriptions of Brahms and other music.

Any connection is tenuous, to say the least; the Quintet is given a heavenly treatment, more evocative, alas, of Vienna than Budapest.

Ottensamer has a star team, led by violinist Leonidas Kavakos and the Adagio, with its hypnotising mesh of lines and gestures, is extraordinarily beautiful.

At this point, however, we move to another musical country.

A medley of two Brahms waltzes, arranged by second violinist Christoph Koncz, is vulgarly over-written, squeezing out every possible countermelody in the worst Palm Court manner.

Two Hungarian Dances benefit marginally from the addition of a cimablon to add local colour and beef up crescendos.

Brahms is finally deserted for two very ordinary short pieces by Leo Weiner (1885-1960), an academic who composed on the side, followed by a set of Transylvanian dances.

A familiar Brahms waltz turns up briefly here but, with the cimbalon joined by accordion, we've deserted the concert hall for the Womad trail.