Four Hand Piano Music 3
Silke-Thora Matthies and Christian Köhn have previously recorded two volumes of Brahms and a disc of Dvorák'sSlavonic Dances. Both of the works on this disc are better-known in other scorings, the Sonata as Brahms's Piano Quintet, the Variations in Brahms's orchestral version. While the better-known versions came later, the fact that Brahms did not suppress these scores (as he did with so many others) indicates that he considered them valid alternatives. And even if you miss the color of the strings in the Sonata, or the orchestra in the Variations, the singing tone, nuances, and driving power (but only when called for) make these performances very much worth hearing--different in style from the excellentArgerich-Rabinovitchversion, and much less expensive.--Leslie Gerber