Eric Le Sage - Brahms: Sonates pour alto et piano, Zwei Gesänge (Intégrale musique de chambre), Vol. 5 (Live) (2019)

This new section deals with the wind instruments of the German master. It brings together interpreters obviously welded and passionate, accomplices and followers of a collective game whose result engraved on two CDs is royal and ideal to discover or find this repertoire dotted with timeless nuggets.

In four of the five selected scores, Brahms offers a place of first importance to the clarinet he had just reconsidered rather late (at 57) thanks to his meeting with Richard Mühlfeld, the sumptuous clarinetist of the Meiningen orchestra whose mastery technical, timbric and expressive fascinated the composer to the point of devoting his last major opus. The Quintet in B minor op. 115, combining the clarinet with the strings of the traditional quartet, was composed in the spring and summer of 1891 in Bad Ischel, together with the trio for clarinet, cello and piano, op. 114. The clarinettist Florent Pujuila and his accomplices admirably emphasize the qualities of the impressive and original Quintet. The first movement, Allegro, is based on a quivering initial theme entrusted to the two violins, which will be repeated later by the clarinet. The Adagio and its melody ardent and moving entrusted to the clarinet then turns to a kind of Hungarian folk music, brilliant and punctuated by arpeggios. The next movement (Andantino) leads with its active features to the last movement, Con moto, which benefits from a beautiful treatment of the moaning theme followed by five variations and ends with a surprise return of the theme of the initial Allegro.

The other works, like the Quintet, are also executables that can be described as superlative, without forgetting to say that Joel Lasry's horn is impressed by its precision, its timbre and its smiling speech. and resigned in the Trio in E flat major op. 40 After 1865. After so many satisfactions, achievements and transports, it seems useless to say that we are looking forward to the release of the next volume of the integral which will count eight.

Tracklist:

01. Viola Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120: I. Allegro appasionato (Live)
02. Viola Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120: II. Andante un poco adagio (Live)
03. Viola Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120: III. Allegro grazioso (Live)
04. Viola Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120: IV. Vivace (Live)
05. Viola Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 120: I. Allegro amabile (Live)
06. Viola Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 120: II. Allegro appassionato (Live)
07. Viola Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 120: III. Andante con moto - Allegro (Live)
08. Zwei Gesänge for Voice, Viola and Piano, Op. 91: I. Gestillte Sehnsucht (Live)
09. Zwei Gesänge for Voice, Viola and Piano, Op. 91: II. Geistliches Wiegenlied (Live)