Brahms Reimagined: Why another recording of the Brahms Sonatas?

In his book After the Golden Age Kenneth Hamilton takes a swipe at half-baked approaches to Historically Informed Performance Practice: “Some modern players of nineteenth-century pianos seem to feel uncomfortable with certain performance practices associated with the era. It is surprising how many award themselves a gold star for using historical instruments on recordings (sometimes chronologically bizarre ones) but steadfastly ignore the improvisation, unmarked arpeggiation of chords, and tempo flexibility that was such an important feature of much romantic performance practice.” A similar swipe at string players might award only muted approbation for the use of gut strings if divorced from a varied use of vibrato and bow vibrato coupled to an enthusiastic embracing of vocal portamenti.

Dorothea Vogel and John Thwaites adopt a radically revisionist tone in these recordings, believing that both piano and string playing in the closing decades of the nineteenth century differed significantly from today’s norms. They are indebted to the work of Professor Emeritus Clive Brown and the work that he and his colleagues have done for the Bärenreiter Brahms edition.