The affirmative Allegro that launches Brahms’s Second String Quintet on its course is among the most exhilarating episodes in romantic chamber music and this new recording by the augmented Hagen Quartet greets the air like an unexpected sunbeam. Parallels with the Third Symphony extend to an exultant first-movement development section, while the Un poco allegretto third movement recalls the wooded world of Brahms’s late songs and the finale, the breezy Serenades from some years earlier. This particular recording combines clarity and substance; nothing is left to chance and although phrasing occasionally suggests a certain degree of calculation, the end result is notably colourful, both in tone and in feeling.
The First Quintet is crisply pointed, with crystalline textures, a pleasantly laid-back account of the first movement’s lovely second set (1'38'') and a finely tensed development section. Furthermore, the heavily contrapuntal finale is played with formidable precision and great rhythmic elan. Listening to these performances is rather like viewing a great film on a relatively small screen: the imaging (in this case, the tone) may lack the breadth of certain rivals, but the focusing is pin-sharp, the colours undiluted. Both performances include first-movement exposition repeats and both represent the Hagens’ ‘stylistic grid’ at its most convincing, in other words, with vividly attenuated dynamics, occasional volatility, a consistent sense of line, impressive internal clarity, equal distribution of voices and a remarkable degree of concentration (most notably in the slower music – try from, say, 10'14'' into the First Quintet’s second movement). Comparisons will be of the essence primarily for those who find the Hagens’ sensitized approach too wilfully stylized, in which case the Juilliard Quartet (with violist Walter Trampler) provides a more ‘traditionally’ warm-textured alternative.
The two viola sonatas feature strong piano playing from Paul Gulda (Friedrich’s son), most particularly in the last movement of the F minor and the second movement of the E flat major (with its noble sostenuto ‘trio’). Veronika Hagen’s sinewy tone suggests a lean mezzo to compare with the mellow baritone of, say, William Primrose (whose excellent 1958 mono recording with Rudolf Firkusny has just been reissued by EMI). Gulda is at his most poetic in the First Sonata’s second movement, but although both players have the measure of Brahms’s muse, I sensed the balance of power was weighted rather too much in Gulda’s favour.
By far the best items on the disc are the two Op. 91 songs, where Iris Vermillion – a luminous-sounding mezzo with keen textual awareness – melds among her colleagues like a third instrumentalist. Both performances are remarkably fluent, but the sonatas are more perceptively served by Primrose. The two discs under review are very well recorded and expertly annotated by Bernard Jacobson.'