Octo_Russ

Brahms - 3 Intermezzi Op117 [Angelich]

Ahh, more Brahms wonderful piano music, you know i'm loving these pieces more and more, Beethoven and Schubert seem to be the masters of the Piano Sonata, Brahms tried his hand at these, pretty much unsuccessfully, but he turned his hand to books of piano pieces, much like say Debussy would do, individual pieces that didn't need to relate to their neighbour structurally and architecturally, but could stand on their own, maybe Brahms was influenced by Schubert's 3 Klavierstucke [which Brahms named and edited].

This two disc set is ideal, bringing together the whole set of the four books of pieces, however Angelich plays a tad on the slow side, which means he spills over onto a second disc [roughly 85 minutes], Helene Grimaud only used one disc for these same works [roughly 75 minutes], and i'm going to play her set this weekend, so watch this space, but Angelich is still beautiful, these discs are very desirable.

Nicholas Angelich is actually American [i thought he was French], but he seems to have lived for many years in France, he is still relatively young at 40, these discs were recorded in 2006, now i like this booklet [photo by Stephane de Bourgies], some may feel a very kitsch shot, a chair turned around backwards, and the sitter straddles the back with their legs, a pose overdone?, i believe it works very well indeed, the lighting is not uniform, nice shadows, and the lettering across the middle of the booklet is great, inspired to use blue in Brahms, i really like it, the back cover is a thoughtful pose.

Again this first piece is glorious [Op117 / 1], the opening is really melting, and this work is fast becoming a real endearment to me, Angelich starts off with an ideal speed, lovely and well sustained, a beautiful sound coming from his piano, and the genius of Brahms's melodies are well caught [0:00-1:19], there's a darker middle section [1:20-3:28], which is not so easy to love, and takes a greater degree of concentration to admire, when the repeat for the opening comes around again [3:28+], it's just that bit more faster, and varied, what a beautiful creation by Brahms.

Here's Azusa Ichijo playing the first Intermezzo from Op117 on YouTube.