Classical Music: Brahms & Contemporaries, Vol. 2

Brahms & Contemporaries, Vol. 2

Johannes Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60;
Louise Héritte-Viardot Piano Quartet in A major, Op. 9 ‘Im Sommer’

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective
Elena Urioste violin; Rosalind Ventris viola; Laura van der Heijden cello; Tom Poster piano.

Chandos CHAN 20329
chandos.net

There's something rather special about the way the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective presents their latest recording. Like a letter delivered on a silver tray, this album arrives with an elegance and refinement that immediately signals the care and sensitivity with which these musicians approach their craft.

The programme pairs two contrasting works that, whilst separated by geography and musical philosophy, share a common thread of emotional depth. Brahms's Third Piano Quartet dominates, a work that famously gestated for two decades from its first sketches in 1855 to completion in 1875. Commentators often link this protracted creation to Brahms's complex relationship with Clara Schumann, who heard numerous iterations before the final version emerged. Yet whatever personal demons or desires may have driven its composition, the result remains, characteristically for Brahms, pure music rather than programme.

The quartet's performance captures both the work's architectural grandeur and its intimate conversational qualities. The interplay between violin, viola and cello creates wonderfully layered textures, whilst Tom Poster's piano contributions are notably lucid, his articulation sensitively judged throughout. There's a richness to the overall sound palette that serves Brahms's complex harmonic language particularly well, with each voice maintaining its clarity whilst contributing to the collective whole.

The first half of this disc ventures into more explicitly programmatic territory with Louise Héritte-Viardot's Im Sommer (In Summer). This French composer, daughter of the renowned Pauline Viardot-Garcia, offers a stark contrast to Brahms's abstract approach. Her four-movement work bears evocative titles: 'Morning, in the Woods', 'Flies and Butterflies', 'Sultriness', and 'Evening, under the Oak-tree', creating a distinctly pictorial musical landscape.

Here the quartet demonstrates remarkable adaptability, perfectly capturing the work's different characteristics. The second movement, 'Fliegen und Schmetterlinge', sees them alternating between swift and languid tempi to create a genuinely aural depiction of summer insects at play. The slow third movement conjures its sultry atmosphere with considerable skill, revealing moments where Brahms's influence can be detected in Héritte-Viardot's harmonic language.

This is enchanting music that could easily provide a film soundtrack, particularly the warmly-toned theme of the third movement. The final movement, 'Abends unter der Eiche', concludes the recital rather beautifully, with a particularly lovely piano part that rounds off proceedings on a note of gentle satisfaction.

The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective proves itself a thoroughly accomplished ensemble, communicating with the poise and stylishness that both these works demand. Their programming choices demonstrate thoughtful curation, whilst their performances reveal both technical mastery and genuine musical understanding. This is chamber music-making of considerable quality.