Brahms & Reger: Clarinet Quintets
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JOHANNES BRAHMS / MAX REGER
Brahms & Reger: Clarinet Quintets
Michael Collins (clarinet), Escher String Quartet
[ BIS SACD / Hybrid SACD ]
Release Date: Friday 28 August 2026
This item is only available to us via Special Order. We should be able to get it to you in 3 - 6 weeks from when you order it.
Having made numerous recordings for BIS both as a clarinetist and as a conductor, Michael Collins had yet to offer us one of the masterpieces of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Quintet.
Here he performs alongside the Escher Quartet, whose latest recording, devoted to Janacek's quartets (BIS2670), has earned critical acclaim.
While the combination of clarinet and string quartet offers rich potential, Mozart's glorious clarinet quintet cast a long shadow that few composers dared to enter. Composed at the twilight of his career, Brahms' quintet is an elegiac masterpiece. It radiates aching nostalgia and a poignant sense of lost love, ultimately settling into a melancholy serenity. Its emotional directness is occasionally surprising yet never sacrifices subtlety.
Max Reger modelled his own Clarinet Quintet on those by Mozart and Brahms. In this final composition before his untimely death, Reger pushed tonal limits without compromising structure. Seamlessly integrating the clarinet, he created a beautifully balanced ensemble capable of both powerful outbursts and delicate textures. Straddling the dawn of the 20th century, Reger's remarkably rich work pays profound homage to the past.
"The extent of his career means this is Michael Collins's third account of Brahms's Clarinet Quintet. Recorded when a member of the Nash Ensemble, the first is elegantly conceived and finely integrated if lacking that more personal input to the fore in a remake with the Brodsky Quartet, where the emphasis on expressive extremes mitigates any overtly Classical leanings.
No less involving, this latest version with the Escher Quartet is swifter and more cohesive - notably an Adagio which, over a minute faster than its predecessor, builds to its impassioned climax with unfailing impetus and to which the capricious intermezzo that follows seems an admirable foil. Neither is there any lack of emotional depth in the outer movements, the first achieving an astute balance between restlessness and repose that the closing variations do not so much resolve as allow to subside into resignation the more inevitable for being unaffected." Gramophone Editor's Choice Oct 26
"Amidst other recent couplings of these quintets, this release offers more polished and authoritative interpretations" BBC Music
