MP3 Chanda VanderHart & Ronald Fuchs - Johannes Brahms, Sonatas for cello and piano

Piano and cello sonatas and Lieder from Johannes Brahms recorded on the very same piano Brahms himself played in the 1880s.

13 MP3 Songs in this album (71:55) !
Related styles: Classical: Brahms, Classical: Sonata, Instrumental

People who are interested in D. Barenboim & J. du Pré Rostropovich & Serkin Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax should consider this download.


Details:
The Mürzzuschlag (Austria) Brahms Museum's "Brahms Piano"

Following Johannes Brahmsâ advice, in Octo­ber 1881 Richard and Maria Fellinger bought a black grand piano from the cel­e­brated piano man­u­fac­tur­ing firm of Emil Streicher.

Brahms was intro­duced to the Fellinger fam­ily by Clara Schu­mann in 1881. Over the next few years, this acquain­tance­ship grew into a deep friend­ship. The Fellingers and Brahms spent the sum­mer of 1885 together in Mürz­zuschlag, and Brahms became a reg­u­lar guest at the Fellinger res­i­dence, the Aren­berg palais, in Wien Erdberg.

Between 1882 and 1885 Brahms played no fewer than thirty house con­certs at the Fellingerâs on the Stre­icher grand piano with renowned friends and col­leagues includ­ing cel­list Robert Haus­mann, clar­inetist Richard Mühlfeld, vio­lin­ist Maria Soldat-Roeger, singer Her­mine Spies and the Joachim Quar­tet. In 1889 Brahms recorded the only acoustic record of his play­ing on the Stre­icher grand using an Edi­son wax cylin­der acquired by Robert Fellinger.

In par­tic­u­lar, Brahms often per­formed both his sonatas for cello and piano at the Fellingerâs with the cel­list of the famous Joachim Quar tet, Robert Haus­mann. He even pub­licly per formed the 2nd Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 99 on the Stre­icher grand at the Fellingerâs in a house con­cert sev­eral days prior to its offi­cial pre­miere in the Musikverein of Vienna. In Richard Fellingerâs book, âMem­o­ries of Brahmsâ (pub­lished in 1997 by the Brahms Museum Mürz­zuschlag and revised by Imo­gen Fellinger), his rela­tion­ship with Brahms is described with great feel­ing. Dr. Imo­gen Fellinger, the great-niece and last direct descen­dent of Brahmsâ friends, Richard and Maria Fellinger, donated this unique instru­ment to the Brahms Museum.

Piano builder Gert Hecher (www.hecherpiano.com) skill­fully restored the Stre­icher grand in 2002. The cross strung, 2.4 meter long piano âNr. 8105â³ with Vien­nese action and a forged iron frame­work was man­u­fac­tured in 1880 by the firm Emil Stre­icher. It is on exhibit at the Brahms Museum, and is played reg­u­larly dur­ing museum con­certs.
In the inter­est of pre­serv­ing the overtone-rich sound char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Stre­icher grand, record­ing engi­neer Ernst Frei­hoff used an ORTF record­ing tech­nique and closely placed micro­phones. Recorded from a sin­gle loca­tion, this cre­ates a sound expe­ri­ence sim­i­lar to hear­ing a live per­for­mance while seated in a con­cert hall. Play­ing the two Brahms cello sonatas, par­tic­u­larly on this Stre­icher grand with Vien­nese action cre­ates an inter­est­ing chal­lenge for the pianist.

This chal­lenge, as well as Brahmsâ 175th birth­day in 2008 inspired these record­ings in the âKun­sthausâ in Mürz­zuschlag. Ronald Fuchs and Chanda Van­der­Hart play, in addi­tion to the two cello sonatas, six Brahms lieder tran­scrip­tions in their orig­i­nal keys. The lieder selected have a spe­cial con­nec­tion to both the Stre­icher piano and with Mürz­zuschlag itself. Brahms played severel of them, includ­ing âWie Melo­dien zieht es mirâ with Her­mine Spies, and com­posed both âSap­phis­che Odeâ and âDer Tod, das ist die kühle Nachtâ dur­ing his time in Mürzzuschlag.