This is hardly an all-star recording of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, but it has a great deal going for it. Start with the engineering from the German audiophile label MDG. Curiously, no location is given, nor do you learn whether the Three Intermezzi, Op. 117, were recorded in a different place (auditory evidence suggests that they were). The mixed-genre program is atypical for MDG, but the detail in both the Concerto and the Intermezzi is beautifully delineated. Dissenters from the positive opinion ...
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This is hardly an all-star recording of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, but it has a great deal going for it. Start with the engineering from the German audiophile label MDG. Curiously, no location is given, nor do you learn whether the Three Intermezzi, Op. 117, were recorded in a different place (auditory evidence suggests that they were). The mixed-genre program is atypical for MDG, but the detail in both the Concerto and the Intermezzi is beautifully delineated. Dissenters from the positive opinion here might include those who prefer their Brahms on the Beethovenian side, which, to be sure, is the preponderant performance mode. Pianist Dina Ugorskaja and conductor Peter Gülke, leading the venerable Brandenburger Symphoniker, craft a deliberate reading of the Piano Concerto No. 1, with the emphasis in the massive flat sixth in the opening material not on its innate drama, but on its complex implications for the rest of the movement. The first movement weighs in at more than 25...
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