Home listening - Brahms, Schumann – and Henry Wood

The Guardian 0

Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien turn to Brahms. Plus, Schumann’s annus mirabilis with Simon Wallfisch and Edward Rushton

• With the chill of approaching autumn descending, it seems an appropriate time to listen to Brahms’s Violin Sonatas, imbued as they are with such wistful nostalgia, particularly No 1 in G major, Op 78. Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien have a new recording of all three sonatas out on Hyperion, their long-standing partnership having already produced a memorable Hyperion Mozart series.

The song-like nature of the first two Brahms sonatas is very much to the fore, Ibragimova playing with a miraculously sinuous vocal line, graceful, sonorous and at times heartbreakingly tender. Tiberghien is both poetic and magisterial, particularly in the first movement of the second sonata, Op 100, which requires a huge range of colour and dynamic contrast, all beautifully realised here.