BRAHMS CELLO
Zoe Knighton and Amir Farid
Move Records MD 3451
You'll find the cello well-represented in the Brahms catalogue. We have the bountiful Double Concerto Op. 102 as well as multiple chamber works: three definite piano trios, three piano quartets, the F minor Piano Quartet, the clarinet trio and mellifluous quintet, a string trio, three string quartets, the two string quintets and two string sextets. But when considering the instrument as a more exposed voice in Brahms' output, we're left with the two cello sonatas: Op. 38 n E minor and Op. 99 in F Major, written 21 years apart. Still, these stand as highpoints of the form, each score a rich repository of power and brilliance, both indispensable elements in every aspirant instrumentalist's repertoire.
Here is the latest collaboration for Move Records from cellist Zoe Knighton and pianist Amir Farid. It's the sixth in a sequence that began in 2010 with the complete Felix Mendelssohn product for cello and piano. This was followed a year later by an Argentine collection of odds and sods, with Constantino Gaito's Cello Sonata of 1918 as its culminating point. Then came the complete Beethoven in 2012, followed by a French collection in 2013 where Debussy's sonata capped a series of bagatelles and arrangements. A Russian collation came by in 2015, with the Gretchaninov and Prokofiev sonatas taking pride of place. Most recently, in 2021 we heard the 'complete' Schumann through the Funf Stucke im Volkston and the Fantasiestucke Op. 73 juxtaposed with arrangements of 15 lieder by the composer's wife Clara.
Put both Brahms cello sonatas together and you have about 58 minutes' worth of music on this particular CD. To flesh out the length, these artists have provided three lieder as makeweights. We hear the first two of the Op. 43 set of four - Von ewiger Liebe and Die Mainacht, along with the middle member of the Op 63 Lieder, Meine Liebe ist grun. All are welcome as reminders of the composer's mastery at plumbing emotional insights, as in the eternal love statement from the maiden in the first of these, where the rhythm moves from a solid 3/4 to the more consoling 6/8 and Brahms' tonality changes to the major while his melodic line pursues a complementary path to that urged by the worrisome lad who thinks he's throwing down a commitment gauntlet at the end of the seventh stanza.
No such affirmation in the melancholy depression of the May night wanderer who clearly thinks the search for his lachelndes Bild is fruitless, its only outcome this perfectly posed lied which surges to a compelling ardour in Knighton's hands at the flattened supertonic downward arpeggio in the seventh-last bar: a superlative example of poetic self-pity.
Separating both is the happy outpouring about love's freshness and the elation of its emergence in what I assume is a young man's voice although, in these piping times of transgenderization, nothing can be taken at face value. Knighton and Farid take this passionate lyric at a vivid realization of its Lebhaft direction, the pianist's hands full of syncopated middle voices across the lied's stretch, leavening the cello's regularly-shaped vocal line.
You'll find so many indelible pages in Brahms' output that have maintained their power to move, years after your first experience: the Violin Concerto's finale opening, the gloom-piercing Ihr habt nur Traurigkeit from A German Requiem, that amiable Menuetto from the D Major Serenade,, the subterranean hugger-mugger of the finale to the Symphony No. 3, an open-handed humanity from the opening bars of the G Major Violin Sonata, the enthralling breadth of the Piano Trio in B Major's first 44 bars - you could go on for some time.
Among these passages of unforgettable responsiveness strikes is the first movement entire of the E minor Cello Sonata. Knighton and Farid's reading works as something like a scouring revelation to those of us who play it as a tussle for supremacy; for example, the forceful contest between bars 54 and 65, or the lurching inexorability between bars 111 and 125. In this account, the duel remains rational and disciplined, thanks to Farid's delivery of a moderate dynamic output. You find plenty of willing power in this disc's interpretation but the intention of the players' output is to emphasize the muffled drive of the composer's construct, peppered with some eloquent detailed work, such as the slight hiatus heralding a change of key at bar 50, and Knighton's haunting, veiled line at the repeat of the exposition's opening.
An important factor in the appeal of this movement comes with the performers' responsiveness to each other, especially in their mirrored phrasing, best exemplified across the development section's pages which are a model of mutual pliability. Mind you, these musicians stick to a schedule, even at the relaxation of this movement's coda when we change to E Major for a consoling lullaby and the pace is less stringently marked. Of course, that emotional ease after pages of controlled stress is one of the joys with which Brahms delights us, if nowhere more touchingly so than here.
When it comes to the Allegretto quasi Menuetto, the performers present the movement with an easy grace, their phrasing well-balanced and congruent, Farid happy to set the running from bar 47 to bar 59 where the piano has all the action over an unexceptional bass-reinforcing cello part. Here again, you can find details that pique your attention, as in the Boskovsky-like hesitation concluding bar 70 (that recurs at the end of the pleasantly fluid Trio's second part).
Unlike most other assaults on the final Allegro, Knighton and Farid have a rather laid-back approach where the fugal lines are given plenty of air, the ambience less fierce than you'd expect. Still, this makes sense when you consider the clarity of the writing and the uncomplicated nature of the entries while the fugue is still in operation. Knighton makes an effective splaying of those solitary cello bass notes in the polemic of bars bar 25 to 29, But the most noticeable factor in this version is the lucidity of mass from both players, especially in those pages that are often handled as a sweaty welter, which includes pretty much everything from bar 147, through the Piu presto, up to the concluding clincher. This interpretation dances in well-heeled shoes rather than the all-too-common galoshes.
When we come to the Sonata No. 2, the atmosphere changes completely. Its first pages are notable for a tremolando urgency in the piano underpinning an urgent and buoyant outpouring from the cello, the complex excellently handled by Knighton and Farid as Brahms moves from exuberance to less active, more measured elation, then back again to furious action from both participants. Later, you can relish the narrative directness of the development with its sequence of compressed treatments, culminating in the reversal of roles between bars 92 and 118 where the cello is all a-flutter while the piano articulates quiet, full-bodied chords, this passage remembered in passing before the emphatic conclusion.
An attractive sentiment typifies the Adagio affettuoso and a gentle and pliant approach makes for a reading that involves you, even if it doesn't overwhelm with emotional weight. Neither player goes for the jugular, except possibly at the emphatic start to bar 64 where Knighton's pizzicato is unexpectedly percussive; both maintain a consistency of pace and pointed emphasis in crescendo-decrescendo surges, Knighton employing a healthy vibrato while observing the decencies, rather than spilling over into ripe blather.
Once again, you could find much to admire in the following Allegro passionato, particularly Farid's sensible handling of some very thick writing, not least those hemiolas that start in bars 17-24 and recur (in both instruments) across the movement. Later, what a welcome delight to break out of a particularly emphatic batch of them at bar 109! Then, alongside the galumphing rhythmic high-jinks, you reach a lyrical pearl in the Trio from bar 180 to bar 191, even more welcome in its glowing repeat. Again, you have to thank these performers for the aural rewards they give us in the clear delivery of texture in these pages that are often treated with more bucolic gruffness than is necessary.
We arrive at the final Allegro molto and strike a friendly enough landscape, if not a particularly long-winded one. The only feature of its plain main melody that strikes interest is the flattened leading note in bar 3; the rest of the melodic terrain makes for plain sailing. One of the few later points of interest comes with Farid's deft account of the right hand in bar 28 where the triplets against regular quavers are enunciated with admirable ease. But then Farid is a model of care in his work, as witnessed across these two sonatas with no detail glossed over and a high degree of consideration for Knighton.
So welcome to this new CD which provides us with a fine demonstration of this partnership in full fruition, the partners' energies and talents exercised on a brace of cello/piano masterpieces: a welcome addition to the libraries of Brahms enthusiasts and to the ears of those who delight in experiencing chamber music at its most appealing.
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