• Tracks

Late Brahms speaks in fragments, memories and subtle revelations. In these intimate piano works, every gesture carries the weight of a lifetime distilled into a few measures: songs without words, reflections that seem to emerge from silence and return to it. Here Sir Andr's Schiff brings together the Albumblatt (an early piece, discovered in 2012,) the Klavierst?cke op. 76, the Fantasien op. 116, the Intermezzi op. 117, the Klavierst?cke op. 118 and op. 119 in a recital that traces the inward arc of Brahms's final decades. Rather than monumental statements, these are conversations with memory - music of extraordinary concentration, where tenderness and clarity coexist. Recorded in the Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Abs in Bonn on a Bl?thner piano from the 1850s, Schiff's performance reveals the subtle architecture and poetic intimacy of these, for the most part late, masterpieces. Every phrase is shaped patiently, allowing Brahms's music to unfold with quiet inevitability. 2-CD set.