Arabella Steinbacher, Robert Kulek - Brahms: Complete Works for Violin and Piano (2011) [SACD]

The new violin superstar Arabella Steinbacher has been praised on this site for her recordings of concertos of Bartók, Szymanowski and Dvorák. Now exclusively on Pentatone, she now has this set of all of the music for violin and piano by Brahms. She isn’t the first one to record all three sonatas plus the Scherzo from the FAE Sonata, but this is the only version on SACD. Pianist Robert Kulek already is established as a teacher and chamber music specialist; these two artists made a previous recording of sonatas of Poulenc, Fauré and Ravel on the Orfeo label. High quality on this new release, and the expected quality audio from Pentatone’s engineering team headed, as usual, by Job Maarse.


Tracks:

Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 1 in G, Op. 78
01 Vivace ma non troppo 11.06
02 Adagio 8.55
03 Allegro molto moderato 9.20

Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 2 in A, Op. 100
04 Allegro amabile 8.26
05 Andante tranquillo – Vivace 7.03
06 Allegretto grazioso (quasi Andante) 5.42

Sonata for Piano and Violin No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108
07 Allegro 8.11
08 Adagio 4.53
09 Un poco presto e con sentiment 3.04
10 Presto agitato 5.52

Scherzo from the FAE Sonata in C minor, WoO 2
11 Allegro - Trio – Più moderato – In tempo ma marcato 5.50

Personnel:

Arabella Steinbacher, violin
Robert Kulek, piano