A two-CD set is offered. The first is a selection of items from a range of
composers including Rachmaninov, Scriabin, De Falla, Chopin and Liszt, and includes the Argentinean Alberto Ginastera (1916 to 1983). The other, much more unusually in classical circles, contains 12 improvisations. Montero often does these as encores. It's this disc of improvisations that is particularly remarkable, with her style ranging from jazz to what could be described as classically-inspired fantasias.
Aimez-vous Brahms?(Do you like Brahms?) asked Francoise Sagan a long time ago in the title of a novel. I don't know what I would have replied at the time, but the older I get the more I enjoy him. There was a time when I took it for granted he was something of a fat cat, purring luxuriously with his sonorous harmonies and full orchestration, the perfect composer for business executives. Now I see him differently, as a somewhat withdrawn, introspective individual who pursued an unfashionable interest in pre-Romantic music and collected original manuscripts of Schubert songs.
A new CD from EMI of his three Violin Sonatas reinforces the view of Brahms as unostentatious and inward-looking. These beautiful works are given sensitive and delicate performances here, and in addition there is the movement Brahms wrote, aged 20, for the Sonata FAE. (frei aber einsam, free but alone), in which each of the three movements was written by a different composer. Altogether fine sounds and flawless interpretations.
RSS