Two of the great cornerstones of 19th-century chamber music were written by Brahms. Each, in a very different way, is a colossus, and each is a total masterpiece: of structure, craftsmanship and ...

The soaring, optimistic opening of Brahms's String Quintet No 2 in G major, Op 111 is one of the great moments in chamber music: upper strings, enriched with the addition of a second viola, shimmer ...

Composed eight years apart, Brahms's two String Quintets belong among his finest chamber music, yet they remain surprisingly little known outside the circle of chamber enthusiasts. Brahms employs the ...

Brahms famously ran into problems with a two-cello string quintet, which metamorphosed into a work for two pianos, and then into the great Piano Quintet we know today. Small wonder, then, that his two ...

ASPEN – This was a good week at the Aspen Music Festival for chamber music, and especially Brahms. On Tuesday night, a Brahms string quintet hit a high point in the hands of the Takacs Quartet. And ...

To tackle Op 111 first, one of the truly great string quintets, the upper strings’ pulsing semiquavers (cast in 9/8 time) are marked forte, the tempo Allegro non troppo, ma con brio. The G major cello ...

THERE is something slightly mystical about the string quintet, with its extra layer of harmony added to the more familiar two violins, viola and cello quartet line up. For Luigi Boccherini the extra ...

Brahms was apparently so petrified of comparisons with Beethoven's achievements in the form that he destroyed the 20 or so string quartets he composed as a youth before finally, having turned 40, ...

The Takács Quartet also offer a rival recording of the C minor String Quartet (their Hyperion remake, which follows almost two decades after their first recording for Decca, 9/90 R). While both the ...