The second disk in pianist Malcolm Martineau’s project to record all the Brahms songs will soon be available. It features twenty nine songs for low voice with, as far as i could tell, no theme. All the works have titles like Fünf Gesänge Op.72 which actually starts the disk.
The singing is shared between mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann. Both are wonderful singers with terrific artistry and sensitive treatment of text. With Martineau at the piano it’s hard to imagine these relatively little performed songs getting better performances.
Here are a few interesting events happening in the first half of November. There are