Octo_Russ

Brahms - Piano Quartet 1 [Domus] 

Brahms's chamber music contribution is huge, and he has turned his hand to most expressions within this form, i'm still coming to terms with some of his compositions [the String Quartets for one], but others have been long favourites [the Violin Sonatas for instance], the Piano Quartets reside somewhere in the middle, i'm certainly familiar enough with them, and yet they're still elusive as firm friends, so it was good to delve into this work today, to cement this more deeply in my heart.

Domus was formed in 1979, and disbanded in 1994, there are String Quartet ensembles in abundance, and Piano Trio ensembles aplenty too, but Domus almost had the Piano Quartet medium to themselves, and they recorded Brahms, Faure, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, and Mozart to name their major works, the front cover for this re-issue is a painting by Henri Le Sidaner called 'Le Dimanche' [The Sunday], the original is an oblong painting of twelve girls in discussion after Church i take it, and a middle square is reproduced here of the main group of five girls, and in the link i have provided, you can see the truncated pieces left and right, which create a greater artistic balance, a wonderfully backlit piece, looks like the evening sunshine, i don't usually like conventional artwork on front cover booklets, much preferring photographs, but this really is lovely, this work was recorded in 1987, originally recorded as two separate discs, but conveniently brought together as a much prized set here.

This whole Piano Quartet is wonderful, very symphonic in many ways, no wonder Schoenberg made an Orchestral version of it, i liked the third movement Andante con Moto the best, its opening is achingly beautiful, full of Brahms's autumn / evening glow, the movement is written in E Flat Major, creating a certain nobility, the very opening is repeated to wonderful effect [1:19+], the movement is slow, but not necessarily always serene, there's outbursts aplenty too, Brahms completely changes tack a third of the way in, with a skippy march like rhythm [3:43-4:33], the piano in the treble, while the strings play a jumpy morse code stuttering, very effective indeed, and somehow it fits in with what went before, and then a louder forte version of the same [4:33-5:58], now it sounds seriously angry, i like the way the music is repeated for emphasis [5:07+], sounds even better the second time around, right at the end there's time for a rhapsodic version of the opening [8:53-9:22], strings high in the treble, piano tolling away in the bass, it's an inspiring movement, made all the more beautiful by a walk in the park while i was listening to it!.

Here's Domus playing the third movement Andante Con Moto on YouTube.