Brahms - 6 Piano Pieces - Op118 [Donohoe]Peter Donohoe is English, now 58 years old, he made this recording in 1990, well it was of course the work [and the Artist] that first attracted me to this disc, but also the cover! [photo by Tobi Corney], green is my favourite colour, and this is a silhouette with a green tinge to it, nice white background to make the black stand out, and white and yellow lettering, i really like it a lot.
On this recording the work lasts roughly 24 minutes [that's roughly 4 minutes a piece], enough time to weave something substantial, but not so long as to meander all over the place, on this listen i found myself drawn to the Fifth Piano Piece, it's entitled 'Romance', it's just simply gorgeous, the 'theme' is gently tolled out twice [0:00-0:44], and what an utterly soothing tune it is, and then with slight variation tolled out twice more [0:44-1:29], and it's this third time that sounds just so convincing, and then there's a central faster section, with happier music [1:30-2:45], with some nicely judged trills, but of course the opening returns in splendour [3:04+] and the second tolling is also the coda [3:24+], and here the music becomes more impassioned and louder for a short while, a nice satisfying end to a lovely piece of music.
