Brahms, the hungarian connection

Description

Young and brilliant Hungarian clarinetist, Andreas Ottensamer explores with this album the connections that Brahms may have had with traditional Hungarian music and the folklore of this country. This recording includes a major work from the clarinet repertoire, the Clarinet Quintet in B minor op.115, as well as Hungarian dances and waltzes composed by Brahms. If Andreas Ottensamer, himself half Hungarian, obviously sees in the Quintet "one of the monuments of the clarinet repertoire, a work that every clarinetist dreams of playing," he aims to show with this program the central role that Hungarian inflections play in Brahms' vocabulary "which can be seen even in the symphonies, perhaps without the composer being aware of it." The ensemble of musicians includes violinist Leonidas Kavakos, Antoine Tamestit (viola), Christoph and Stephan Koncz (violin and cello), Ödon Racz (double bass), Predrag Tomic (accordion), and Oskar Ökrös (tympani).