Gramophone Magazine
October 2024
Editor's Choice

Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo), Hanno Müller-Brachmann (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano)

Brahms: Gesänge, Op. 72
Brahms: Lieder, Op. 105
Brahms: Vier Gesänge, Op. 43
Brahms: Lieder, Op. 48
Brahms: Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 57

Pianist Malcolm Martineau is the brilliant initiator of this new one-of-a-kind series on Linn. The Brahms Songbook has set the unprecedented goal to record Brahms's lieder by complete opus number. In this second instalment, Malcolm is joined by star mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and bass-baritone Hanno Muller-Brachmann in five sets that were composed and published over a period of thirty years: Op. 72, Op. 105, Op. 43, Op. 48 and Op. 57. In a time when the middle-class was growing, song-writing was both lucrative and pleasurable, offering a myriad of ways to explore perennially popular topics like unrequited love. Yet, in the lieder recorded here Brahms immerses us in a heightened emotional world, distant from the drawing rooms and concert halls of the bourgeoisie.

"Martineau’s playing is ever alive to details, always impeccably articulated and beautifully voiced, and his two singers bring a real authority to what they sing." - Gramophone Magazine, October 2024