Violin Sonatas, Opp. 78, 100, 108

Johannes Brahms

Josef Suk, Julius Katchen

Brahms, with No Excess Charisma

Sometimes composers "front-load" the beginning of a piece to capture the audience's attention. And sometimes instrumentalists, even great ones, do the same, starting a piece with exaggerated flourishes. Then, once attention is sufficiently grabbed, "real" music making can begin. The Czech violinist Josef Suk and American pianist Julius Katchen take an opposite approach on Brahms's Violin Sonata, Op. 100: They start unassumingly, following the momentum of Brahms's line, letting the theme unfold at its own pace. Pretty soon, pure music flows out of the wondrous calm. The fragmentary ideas gather into the first great "theme"—an outpouring of ecstatic lyricism from the violin. By movement's end, what started as a matter-of-fact discussion between two musicians has blossomed into a complete, and demanding, idea.

That sensitivity prevails throughout this performance of three peak-period Brahms sonatas, written in 1879, 1886, and 1888. It's audible in the gentleness of the piano phrasing of Opus 78, which is nicknamed the "Rain" Sonata for its steady, consoling rhythms. And it's there in the final movement of Opus 108, when the interplay Brahms devised swells into symphonic gales that foretell a tragedy. Here, Brahms's painstaking exactness becomes clear: The parts are independent and largely equal—a sharing that leads to high-spirited passages.

Suk and Katchen performed together regularly for decades (until Katchen died in 1969), and developed a devoted, if small, following. Their taciturn readings have grown in stature as classical music has gotten charisma-happy: Here is clear, clean, old-school interpretation, with no outsized gestures, just beautiful, logical Brahms.

Genre: Classical
Released: 1967, Decca
Key Tracks: Opus 78: first movement. Opus 108: third movement.
Catalog Choice: Piano Trios, Josef Suk, Julius Katchen, János Starker.
Next Stop: Raphael Ensemble: Brahms String Sextets, Nos. 1 and 2
Book Page: 113

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