Thank you so much Mr Hurwitz, your channel is a treasure ! So much to learn... Grazie, greetings from Italy.

Love these works!

Interesting and a nice variety. Samples were fun.

Thanks for another excellent video - always uplifting, particularly in these difficult times. In the Viennese tradition that you mention (Boskovsky/Testament), there is a more recent recording of both works by Peter Schmidl (ex principal of the Vienna Philharmonic) with the Wiener Musikverein Quartet that has all the qualities you mention regarding the Boskovsky, but in modern sound.

I came first to the Brahms quintet, and loved it immediately (although, as you noted, I'm not better than anyone else because of that). Just wanted to point out that the Wiener Oktett recording is also found (coupled on one cd, just as on Testament) in the fantastic complete Boskovsky box on Decca (apparently still available, although probably not for long). I snapped this up more for the Strauss family stuff than for the rest, but the rest is equally great. As an aside, if you don't love J. Strauss & co.'s music at first hearing, check for pulse.

Was glad to see the Eban/Alexander SQ on the list as it's been my favorite since I heard it. The Alexander's have such a gorgeous tone and "oneness" to their ensemble playing, which is a perfect foil to contrasting with a lead instrument like a clarinet. Eban isn't my favorite soloist in the works, but he's still excellent. I will definitely check out the McGill/Pacifica now too.

Glad you mentioned the Oslo Phil disc, my favorite due to the crystalline, emotionally astute playing -- I will check out some of your other recommendations. The "famous" wind quintet from the Bergen Phil confirms your point about the per capita excess of fine wind players in Norway. Though Mozart's quintet is surely innocent and light compared to Brahms's, it is suffused, like so much of Mozart's late work, with worldliness and a certain knowing detachment from base frivolity.

My favorite for these works has always been Harold Wright’s with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players on Philips. They are equally fine in both works. I have never felt the need to replace it and don’t know if it still available. I may now have to hear McGill’s with the Pacifica, as I have great respect for both of them.

@jacobshumway1708

3 жыл бұрын

Listening to the Harold Wright/Boston disc now. Wonderful performances!

@jwinder2

2 жыл бұрын

@@joachimakerlind4453 His vibrato never overwhelmed his sound; it was always well integrated into whatever he was doing with his use of color and intensity. And he had an incredible palate of color and intensity that he used to great effect.

I also enjoy pickup groups extracted from symphony orchestras in addition to the usual freestanding chamber groups. What lovely works to discuss the morning after America tries to shake off a singularly ugly day in her history.

Hello Mr Hurwitz. I feel that I must make a comment about what you said about the last chord of Brahms's quintet. I have always felt it one of the darkest and coldest moments in the whole world of classical music. You don't want to stay there! Best wishes Fred.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

No argument from me there! It is chilling.

I would like to second Eyal's recommendation for Yona Ettlinlinger and the Tel-Aviv quartet. It is exquisite played and heartfelt and quite well recorded. Something like 20 years or so Ettlinger's widow distributed some copies and luckily I bumped into it in a Tel-Aviv CD shop (Once there was such a thing) and grabbed a copy. Stupid me didn't procure more copies and offer them to my best friends. It must be a rarity today. Rarity hunters, go ahead!!! You won't be disappointed. Chanoch Kronman

Thanks. I know mant of these recordings . though not the new Pacifica. I would add the recording of Yona Ettlinger and the Tel Aviv Quartet of this coupling to the list of the "greats" I don't know if it is available these days.

My own favorite for the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets is the recording done by Reginald Kell and the old Chicago Fine Arts Quartet on Boston Skyline BSD 135. These were originally issued in 1958 on Concert-Disc LPs. The recording quality is superb, BTW. It is absolutely beautiful. They milk the Adagio from the Brahms for everything it's got, for example. This is the old Chicago Fine Arts Quartet with Leonard Sorkin, Abram Loft, Irving Ilmer, and George Sopkin. I have Gervase de Peyer and the Melos Ensemble, which is very beautiful, and some others--all of which are pretty beautiful. I first had the Brahms on LP with Karl Leister and the Amadeus Quartet, which really impressed as extremely beautiful. But Kell/Fine Arts Quartet is my favorite.

@RobertPaulHymes

2 ай бұрын

I’m with you - I think the Kell / Fine Arts performances are pretty much defining. Kell’s tone is not always as rich as we expect from recent clarinetists, but his sense of phrasing, his shaping of lines, is unmatched by anybody since IMHO.

When you have time , please use the saxophone solo in chamber music or orchestral works. Thanks again.

Great choices. By the way, the Czech clarinettist (who also recorded the Mozart concerto with Talich) is called Vladimír Říha (with an R not an F). He was a wonderful player and the Mozart/Brahms disc is a delight. My other favourite is also old-school - the Boskovsky/Vienna Octet mono recordings (which have also been issued on Decca and on Eloquence; their early stereo remakes - also lovely - were on Decca too). Another Mozart/Brahms coupling that you don't mention but which I have in a South Korean Westminster chamber music box is Leopold Wlach with the Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

Wonderful. The hacek on the r made it look like an f. Creative printing.

@nigelsimeone9966

3 жыл бұрын

@@DavesClassicalGuide A bit of trivia for you: when Charles Mackerras was studying in Prague with Talich in 1947-8, his clarinettist wife Judy went with him, and she had lessons with Říha during their stay (her teacher in London had been Frederick Thurston).

I must be in a small minority. I discovered the Brahms on 78s: Reginald Kell and the Busch Quartet. I loved it from the first note aged about ten [in the early 1970s], and yet the Mozart is something pretty but for me not compelling. Not repulsive - no Mozart is - but not something I have ever rushed back to. Eventually I got the Kell/Busch collaboration of the Brahms on LP and then CD. To qualify for your review Kell/Busch is out, but Kell strikes back on the tape era with your coupling. Kell and the Fine Arts Quartet. At least they make a nice effort in the Mozart, but the Brahms is quite something else in my view. I still think that Kell/ Busch is the best. Naturally Adolf Busch and his quartet are peerless and serious musicians, and Kell is completely in tune with his colleagues. They had never met before the recording session, but got along as if old friends. Best wishes from George

@Don-md6wn

3 жыл бұрын

The Kell/Fine Arts Quartet recording was one of my first classical music purchases and this video prompted me to pull it out and listen to it. I love both works but agree the Brahms is the better performance on that disc.

The Weber Quintet is pretty nifty, too. The Scherzo is particularly fun.

Another difficulty of the first movement of the Brahms, certainly on first hearing, is the rhythm, which seems intended to keep the listener disoriented. I first heard the Brahms in live concert (Tokyo String Quartet with Sabine Meyer--not too shabby!) I could make no sense of the first movement, I couldn't find the rhythm, but the surface beauty entranced me, and I found it very moving. Eventually I had the chance to follow the score, but even now years later, the rhythm occasionally seems ambiguous.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, I think that's very true. Brahms' rhythms are often unexpectedly complex and subtle.

Great fun, as usual. The Debussy/Ravel string quartets deserve a similar treatment from you, don't you think?

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

Coming soon.

@AlexanderWollheim

3 жыл бұрын

Definiely check the Arcanto recording then.

My favorite for the Brahms Clarinet Quintet is from the Lyndsay String Quartet, with clarinetist Janet Hilton. A bit slower tempo than most with beautiful sound.

A question about the clarinet instrument. It has been improved much in our time. What do that meant to musicmaking with the instrument? But does it sound better? Is it only tecnique? The thing Fröst can do today, is not only a great talent and very hard training, it is also a better instrument. I still enjoy the old jazz people like Bigard, Russel, Goodman and the classic players. I am just listening to Zahradnik and Talich in the Mozart quintet, and then Fröst in Brahms sonatas. If Zahradnik have played on the same instrument as Fröst, what would have been different? I dont know about clarinet, just listening to it. Any thoughts from the great people in here?

@tortuedelanuit2299

3 жыл бұрын

Speaking as a clarinetist -- but not a historian of musical performance -- I would attribute most of the changes in sound from earlier records to a higher caliber of player rather than instrument, as well as differences in style, though the mass production of reeds allows the player to pick one or two perfect reeds from a box of ten and discard the rest. The instrument itself has not evolved since the 19th century. I tend to prefer the fuller sound of Boehm system clarinets to the narrower sound of Oehler system clarinets used in the Germanic world -- though the English use the Boehm system and tend to cramp their sound even more than the Germans. Ligatures, mouthpieces and barrels have evolved a little, but from my experience, fancy doodads have no discernible effect on sound quality and are mainly a status symbol and marketing ploy. Stylistically, modern players tend not to use much vibrato, which to my ears is a positive development. I would not group vibrato with what David calls "fruitiness," though the two are often linked. Modern playing is certainly in need of a little more fruitiness. I have recently explored making the second subject of the Adagio of the Mozart concerto fruitier by freeing up the rhythms and tone, which has vastly added to my enjoyment playing the piece and creates a perfect contrast to the wistful and subdued primary subject of the movement. I even believe that klezmer smears are appropriate in certain pieces, such as the cat solo in Peter and the Wolf. Consistency and technical perfection do not make a performance truly great.

@s28101

3 жыл бұрын

@@tortuedelanuit2299 Thank you so much, it was very helpfull.

@bigfan2710

3 жыл бұрын

I am a fan of Eric Hoeprich and the London Haydn Quartet on period instruments

Isaac Stern played a Beethoven piano concerto? 😉

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

Yes. The one for violin.

"And Mozart was, first and foremost, a melodist" (2:32). Well, his art is not so much on the melody, but on the formal perfection. "It is the simple truth that he was not one of the great melodic originators, much less so than many a smaller composer. His melody appeals, but does not smite or exact attention forcibly. It is not what he says that makes him the incomparable artist he is, but the incredibly finished, apt and well-ordered way in which he states, strings together and expands his ideas. Among all the great composers he is the one who keeps the secret of his genius most closely guarded. It all seems so simple, so easy to do."-Eric Blom, *Mozart*, J.M. Dent, 1966.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

Stupid nonsense.

@Hermes1548

3 жыл бұрын

@@DavesClassicalGuide why? Please, explain yourself. I rather value your thoughts.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

@@Hermes1548 Thank you. I think what he says is pretty much meaningless.

@Hermes1548

3 жыл бұрын

@@DavesClassicalGuide well. I respect you. And rather like you. thank you.

@DavesClassicalGuide

3 жыл бұрын

@@Hermes1548 Thank YOU.

A great shame that Brahms didn't emulate Mozart further and write a clarinet concerto.

@henrygingercat

3 жыл бұрын

@@thomasgiannetti4032 Indeed they are.

@olegroslak852

3 жыл бұрын

@@thomasgiannetti4032 I'd say the same for the clarinet trio.