NEW RELEASE OF THE DAY - BRAHMS OPENING IN NEW WINDOW....

[jayne lee wilson]

"Quasi Morendo"....
ECM New Series 24/96 via Qobuz Studio. New Release 2019.
Reto Bieri (clarinet) and Meta4.

Sciarrino
Let me Die before I wake (for solo clarinet)
Brahms
Clarinet Quintet
Pesson
Nebenstück (for Clarinet & String Quartet)

Utterly extraordinary performance of the Quintet, of wonderful delicacy, freedom of phrase and natural rubato, with endlessly fine nuances of expression. Played bar-to-bar, as if remade.
You won't need comparisons to hear just how special this is.

Haunting, barely-there pre-post-Brahmsian-echoes from Sciarrino and Pesson, the latter a very free adaptation of Brahms OP.10/4 Ballade. Less an arrangement, more of an estrangement...
Let me Die before I wake is an almost-perception of a clarinet in a dream, wisps and sighs from a distant room...

[kernelbogey]

Sorry - does this mean it's available only as a download?

[vinteuil]

Sorry - does this mean it's available only as a download?

... CD here :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PZX92TS/

.

[jayne lee wilson]

I often think of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet as his Animula vagula blandula.....

Or this from Yeats.....

Greater glory in the Sun,
An evening chill upon the air,
Bid imagination run
Much on the Great Questioner;
What He can question, what if questioned I
Can with a fitting confidence reply.

(from: At Algeciras - A Meditation Upon Death)

[kernelbogey]

Thanks Vints.

[Serial_Apologist]

I ofte think of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet as his Animula vagula blandula.....

I woudn't have thought Brahms would have been into that sort of thing at all.

[HighlandDougie]

... CD here :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PZX92TS/

.

Duly ordered. While I would normally have gone for the download, there is something so seductively attractive about the usual ECM physical CD "package" that makes them a preferable buy to something sitting on the SSD of my MacBook. Love the Brahms - so much looking forward to hearing this disc (and I trust Jayne's judgement - her recent Trio Les Esprits Schubert Piano Trios recommendation has been gladdening my days since receiving it a few days ago).

[teamsaint]

Available on Apple music, I have this lined up for later on.

[jayne lee wilson]

I woudn't have thought Brahms would have been into that sort of thing at all.

Hadrian's animula vagula blandula ....translated freely by Marguerite Yourcenar.....

“Little soul, gentle and drifting, guest and companion of my body, now you will dwell below in pallid places, stark and bare; there you will abandon your play of yore. But one moment still, let us gaze together on these familiar shores, on these objects which doubtless we shall not see again….Let us try, if we can, to enter into death with open eyes…”

[gurnemanz]

Woke up about 7.40 and rather sadly checked my mobile while still in bed. Wife also awake, and Brahms clarinet Quintet being a favourite, I immediately responded to Jayne's recommendation and played it via Spoty ... still lying in bed. Came across beautifully even on my trusty bedside Roberts 93i.

[HighlandDougie]

Duly ordered. While I would normally have gone for the download, there is something so seductively attractive about the usual ECM physical CD "package" that makes them a preferable buy to something sitting on the SSD of my MacBook. Love the Brahms - so much looking forward to hearing this disc (and I trust Jayne's judgement - her recent Trio Les Esprits Schubert Piano Trios recommendation has been gladdening my days since receiving it a few days ago).

I've played this through twice since receiving it in the post earlier. I can't think of the right word - haunting? Exquisite performance of the Brahms, wonderfully recorded. The Sciarrino is described by the clarinetist: "it's mysterious music and has to be mysterious". Thanks, Jayne, not sure that I would have noticed this release - one of my CDs of the year.

[teamsaint]

I've played this through twice since receiving it in the post earlier. I can't think of the right word - haunting? Exquisite performance of the Brahms, wonderfully recorded. The Sciarrino is described by the clarinetist: "it's mysterious music and has to be mysterious". Thanks, Jayne, not sure that I would have noticed this release - one of my CDs of the year.

The Brahms feels very soft edged, a performance that makes previously heard recordings sound terribly inflexible. And it really gets something special from the clarinet sound.