BRAHMS

摘要

This live performance from Maida Vale was made in 1967 and is more than complementary to Katchen's Decca studio recording from 1959. Kempe conducts Brahms with his customary dignity and the slow movement is especially moving. (There's some blurriness in loud passages, largely attributable I suspect to the 'Ambient Mastering' - I wish ICA would stick to plain mono.) Julius Katchen brought profound thinking besides a phenomenal technique to his playing; we hear this in the short solos here, Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, Chopin and Schumann. In a 5m interview the pianist talks about early influences.