CD, Brahms (composer)

The A major Quartet is one of Brahms’s most open-hearted and immediately engaging chamber works. Zimerman and his colleagues deliver a superb performance capturing the outgoing qualities of... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2025, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

The two works have attracted numerous fine recordings, but here a luxury cast of the Belcea Quartet, Tabea Zimmermann and Jean-Guihen Queyras bring us a really special one – full-toned, warm-hearted... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2022, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

Schiff conducts from the keyboard...securing crisp ensemble and cogent longer-term grasp of structure in his forward-moving tempos...The wiry tone of his restored circa-1859 Blüthner grand may... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2021, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 3 out of 5 stars (Recording)More…

There’s a marble-statue nobility to his playing, a sense of his powerful technique being harnessed to expression, and a seriousness-of-purpose…To end, we hear three of Brahms’s Intermezzos:... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2023, 4 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 5 out of 5 stars (Recording)More…

Nigel Short and Tenebrae have come up with a beautifully balanced and contrasted programme…The beauty of sound and dignified expression of intensity that Tenebrae create in the opening of the... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2015, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

He is tender in op. 118/2 and powerful on op. 118/3. Op. 116/4 sings, and op. 117/2 is delicate, with a lovely touch. In several of these works—op. 116/5 and 6, and op. 117/1, for example—Brahms’s... — Fanfare, Jul/Aug 2020More…

Abduraimov serves up one of the noblest and most intelligently shaped Dante Sonatas in the catalogue... You hear long lines and narrative paragraphs instead of pounded-out octaves in an Olympic... — Gramophone Magazine, June 2026More…

We don’t normally associate Daniil Trifonov with Bach, so this recording is a revelation…Many pianists radiate effort in their attempts to make intellectual sense of The Art of Fugue: Trifonov’s... — BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2021, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

…this is a very impressive account of Brahms's German Requiem, deeply considered and most beautifully played and sung. The full, warm sound he draws from the Berlin Philharmonic has a sombre... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2007, 5 out of 5 starsMore…

These are spontaneous-sounding interpretations, sure, but they’re also thoughtful....Indeed, throughout this set, Nézet-Séguin hardly puts a foot wrong, and the COE play their hearts out for... — Gramophone Magazine, September 2024More…