Kremer’s DG Chamber Music: 19th Century

Having accounted yesterday for violinist Gidon Kremer’s latest ECM New Series album of Mieczysław Weinberg’s solo violin sonatas, I shall return to working my way through the 2015 Deutsche Grammophon (DG) collection, Gidon Kremer: Violin Sonatas and Other Chamber Works. I began this month by writing about the eighteenth-century selections in this collection; and this morning I shall move on to the nineteenth century. This is the century that receives the most attention in the anthology.

In that context the most generous allocation goes to Franz Schubert with three CDs. These account for the three sonatinas for violin and piano: D. 384 in D major, D. 385 in A minor, and D. 408 in G minor. Taken as a whole, those pieces fill a single CD. Another CD is devoted to the D. 574 sonata in A major (not published until after Schubert’s death) and the D. 934 fantasia in C major (also published posthumously). The remaining CD is devoted entirely to one more posthumous composition, the D. 803 octet in F major.

The last selection was recorded during performances on the tour of a program entitled Music from Lockenhaus – Gidon Kremer and Friends. Before Kremerata Baltica was launched, Kremer founded the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in 1981; and in 1987 Kremer took that show on the road. The Lockenhaus musicians that joined him for D. 803 were violinist Isabelle van Keulen, violist Tabea Zimmermann, cellist David Geringas, bassist Alois Posch, clarinetist Eduard Brunner, hornist Radovan Vlatković, and bassoonist Klaus Thunemann. I had the good fortune to listen to D. 803 in concert back in the Eighties, and I have been a sucker for it ever since. However, my overall “Schubert addiction” has me “hooked” on all three of the CDs in this collection.

In order of quantity, the next composer to receive “multiple” attention is Johannes Brahms with performances of all three of the violin sonatas: Opus 78 in G major, Opus 100 in A major, and Opus 108 in D minor. These are also personal favorites. While I still prefer Schubert over Brahms, Kremer’s chemistry with pianist Valery Afanassiev definitely draws attention to the virtues of all three of these sonatas. The final “multiples” composer is Robert Schumann with the two sonatas he composed late in life: Opus 105 in A minor and Opus 121 in D minor. Kremer performs these with pianist Martha Argerich. While she has never been my favorite pianist, I was glad to see the attention given to Schumann’s chamber music in this collection.

That leaves two remaining composers at the opposite ends of the timeline. At one extreme there is Carl Maria von Weber’s piano quartet in B-flat major. This is music that deserves more attention than it receives. Performing with violist Veronika Hagen, cellist Clemens Hagen, and pianist Vadim Sakharov, Kremer makes a convincing case for listening to this music. At the other extreme one encounters Ferruccio Busoni with his Opus 36a (second) sonata in E minor. This is another recording that Kremer made with Afanassiev. All of the movements of this sonata are played without interruption, concluding with a set of six variations on a theme capped off with a coda. I have had a long-standing interest in Busoni’s compositions, so its mere presence in this collection is sufficient to draw my attention! The more familiar I become with the Busoni canon, the better equipped I shall be to evaluate specific performances!