Is the slightest of them perhaps the mightiest of Brahms's piano quartets?

Pianist Menahem Pressler, violinist Salvatore Accardo, violist Antonine Tamestit, and cellist Gautier Capuçon play the gorgeous third-movement Andante of Brahms's C minor Piano Quartet, at the 2008 Verbier Festival.

by Ken

As I wrote when I brought up the subject of the third of Brahms's three piano quartets, and wound up presenting only his Second Cello Sonata, the performance of the C minor Quartet I heard in Ian Hobson's New York Brahms piano series, with violinist Andrés Cárdenes, violist Csaba Erdélyi, and cellist Ko Isawaki, finally pushed the piece over the top for me.

The first thing to say about that performance was that it was loud. Oh, not all the time, but when the piece heated up, so did the musicians. (Hobson himself seems more comfortable playing loudly than playing softly, which is harder.) And the first thing to say about the piece is that it is enormously physical. A lot of the melodic material lends itself, even cries out for, real vehemence. It's not just a matter of playing loudly, of course, and certainly not of playing fast -- it's an issue of musical energy, the sort of thing we've heard described so well in pianist Elisabeth von Herzogenberg's letter to the composer regarding the Second Cello Sonata (quoted in the program book for Professor Hobson's series), and the way she imagined he would have played the Scherzo -- better than anyone else -- "agitated without rushing, legato, yet inwardly restless and propulsive."

The piece is so greatly compressed; how it surges forward! The concise development is so exciting, and the augmented return of the first theme is such a surprise! Needless to say, we reveled in the beautiful warm sounds of the Adagio, and especially at the magnificent moment when we find ourselves again in F-sharp major, which sounds so marvelous. I'd like to hear you yourself play the scherzo, with its driving power and energy (I can hear you snorting and grunting in it!). No one else would succeed in playing it as I imagine it: agitated without rushing, legato, yet inwardly restless and propulsive.

In Friday night's preview we heard the scherzo movements of the three Brahms piano quartets, and I think von Herzogenberg's description could serve as an inspiration for performers. That phrase "inwardly restless and propulsive" seems to me to apply equally well to most of the composer's writing.

I thought we would start today by extending Friday's experiment, and hearing the same two sets of performers play the slow movements ot the three Brahms piano quartets. Like the C minor Quartet as a whole, the Andante is written on a noticeably more intimate scale than its predecessors, but I think you'll agree that all three are stunners.

BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25:
iii. Andante con moto


Csilla Szabó, piano; Bartók Quartet members: Péter Komlós, violin; Géza Németh, viola; Károly Botvay, cello. Hungaroton, recorded 1972-74

Borodin Trio (Luba Edlina, piano; Rostislav Dubinsky, violin; Yuli Turovsky, cello); Rivka Golani, viola. Chandos, recorded in Colchester (England), July 14-16, 1988


BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 2 in A, Op. 26:
ii. Poco adagio


István Lantos, piano; Bartók Quartet members: Péter Komlós, violin; Géza Németh, viola; Károly Botvay, cello. Hungaroton, recorded 1972-74

Borodin Trio (Luba Edlina, piano; Rostislav Dubinsky, violin; Yuli Turovsky, cello); Rivka Golani, viola. Chandos, recorded in Colchester (England), July 14-16, 1988


BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60:
iii. Andante


Sándor Falvai, piano; Bartók Quartet members: Péter Komlós, violin; Géza Németh, viola; Károly Botvay, cello. Hungaroton, recorded 1972-74

Borodin Trio (Luba Edlina, piano; Rostislav Dubinsky, violin; Yuli Turovsky, cello); Rivka Golani, viola. Chandos, recorded in Colchester (England), July 14-16, 1988


SO IS THE C MINOR PIANO QUARTET THE "MIGHTIEST"
OR THE "MOST INTIMATE IN SCALE" OF THE THREE?

And my answer is, can't it be both? I think this is one of the things that has made the piece so elusive for me. It's clearly more concise in content than the more dramatic G minor Quartet or the more effusive A major. And yet its expressive scale seems to me, as I've suggested, perhaps the grandest of the three.

Let's go back to Professor Hobson's program book (containing the complete notes for all 14 concerts, and distributed to one and all at each) for comment on the C minor Quartet.

Plush, passionate and full of intricate detail, Brahms's three piano quartets are commanding masterpieces. The last of them was also the first, for by the time it was published, in 1875, some of it was two decades old, dating back to the composer's early twenties -- a time of anxiety and confusion, personal and professional, as he was obliged to confront at once the mental decline of the comoser he most admired, Robert Schumann, and his own growing love for Schumann's wife, Clara. He might once have wanted to be Schumann's successor, but not under these circumstances, and not in this way.

However, long gestation periods were by no means unusual for Brahms: his First Symphony, in the same key, was in progress during most of the same period, and in the latter part of this time he was also struggling with his first two string quartets. Having got those out of the way, in 1873, he seems to have felt able to go back to this troublesome piano quartet, and to the first movement and finale he had drafted in 1855-56, when his plan was for a work in the more awkward key of C-sharp minor. Probably feeling the old finale to be too brief for the work he now had in mind, he made it the scherzo, though it is not in the usual triple time and does not have a trio section. The opening movement, inevitably, stayed in place. Brahms himself gave the first public performance, working again with members of Joseph Hellmesberger's quartet, in Vienna, on November 18, 1876.

BRAHMS: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60

i. Allegro non troppo

This first movement begins in the nature of a slow introduction, but the formidable material here soon speeds up and turns into the first subject, then rapidly gives way to the songful second, on which the music pauses a while to contemplate. Contemplation leads into strenuous and intense development, after which the recapitulation brings a note of dignity restored -- though, of course, the movement has to end with a sense that thdre is more to be said.

Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Guarneri Quartet members: Arnold Steinhardt, violin; Michael Tree, viola; David Soyer, cello. RCA-BMG, recorded in New York, Dec. 27-28, 1967

Mozart Piano Quartet (Tamara Cislowska, piano; Natalie Chee, violin; Hartmut Rohde, viola; Peter Hörr, cello). Arte Nova, recorded c1999

ii. Scherzo: Allegro

Galloping away, the second movement has an urgency no less potent here than it would have been at the end. The piece is a compact sonata allegro -- brief but packing a punch in its development.

Eastman Quartet (Frank Glazer, piano; Millard Taylor, violin; Francis Tursi, viola; Ronald Leonard, cello). Vox, recorded 1968

Quatuor Elyséen (Danièle Bellik, piano; Anne-Claude Villars, violin; Simone Feyrabend, viola; Claire Giardelli, cello). Arion, recorded 1990

iii. Andante

The slow movement in E major, which follows, has often been taken to be early, too, by virtue of its straightforward opening texture, where the cello sings out against a simple piano accompaniment. The cello's melody is, however, richly developed in what follows, with first the violin and then also the viola joining in. One might recall the slow movement of the First Symphony, similarly in E major.

Emanuel Ax, piano; Isaac Stern, violin; Jaime Laredo, viola; Yo-Yo Ma, cello. Sony, recorded in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, 1986

Derek Han, piano; Isabelle Faust, violin; Bruno Giuranna, viola; Alain Meunier, cello. Brilliant Classics, recorded in Sion (Switzerland), Aug. 21-24, 1996

iv. Finale: Allegro comodo

Picking up a cue from the Andante, the Finale starts out by focusing on the violin, the others being soon drawn in so that this movement can equal the power of the first and the animation of the second. Only a finale on this scale, and with this drive, could wrap up so imposing a work.

Schubert Ensemble (William Howard, piano; Simon Blendis, violin; Douglas Paterson, viola; Jane Salmon, cello). Sanctuary Classics, recorded in Bristol (England), July 2-4, 1997

Ames Piano Quartet (William David, piano; Mahlon Darlington, violin; Laurence Burkhalter, viola; George Work, cello. Dorian, recorded in Troy (NY), February 1995

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