Brhams Sextets and Quintets, Amadeus Qt/DG

This is a fine collection of the two Sextets Opp 18 and 36 and the four Quintets Opp. 34, 88, 111 and 115 of Brahms by the Amadeus String Quartet with added solists. The Op 34 is the F-minor Piano Quintet also often incuded with Brahms Piano Quartets in recorded sets. Here, it stands out as a wonderful performance. The Op 115 is the most fetching and famous of the lot, the Clairnet Quintet, and whose second movement is the most tender. But the Op 18, Sextet for Strings in B-flat is prehaps the easiest to approach and the most lyrical. I first learned this piece 35 years ago. I did not know the Op 36, and take a particular shine to its finale. The Op, 88 is also new to me, the theme of its first movement being somehow quintisential for Brahms. I think that the theme of the first movement of Op 36 reminds me of Schubert, from whom one hears lots of echos in Brahms. This recording is 419875-2 on Deutsche Grammophon. The Dover Books Score Johannes Brahms, Complete Chamber Music for Strings contains the music for all but the Op. 34.

A Fine Performancs of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

I recommend a performance by Rudolf Barshai and the Russian National Orchestra from 1993. I learned much detail from the recording, on Capriccio 1plus #51036, along with Beethoven Ninth Symphony/Bloomstedt Dresden Staatskepelle, although the former is the superior of the two. Today I had to drag out my score (Eulenberg) and read along, particularly the Cum Sanctus Fugue. The win in this recording is excellant engineering and chorus perperation, which in the above fugue, allowed me to hear inner parts easily. Less than snappy choral conducting leads to mushy sound especially in either of the great fugues that end the Gloria and Credo of this work, and no less than in the shorter Osanna. Beethoven's vocal writing is notoriously taxing on singers, but the discipline of this ensamble brings out the wonder of Beethoven's conception.

Fine Collection of Bach Orgelbuchlein with 4 part chorales

By chance I happened on the Grammaphone issue for December 2005 which included a CD entitled A Bach Christmas which, among other items, included the first 16 Orgelbuchlein Chorale settings for organ. These are associated with Christmas. What is unique about this CD, from BBC Music, is that interleaved with each organ chorale is a sung four-part chorale version in German with translation in the booklet that accompanies the CD. Since there are often more than one four-part chorale setting for a given chorale melody, careful attention seems to be taken with the choice as relates to the organ chorale. There are two famout chorales from cantatas that begin the CD and an organ fugue at the end, but it is the Orgelbuchlein with four-part chorales that make this CD notable.