In Brahms’s orchestral music the benefits accruing from the use of either period instruments or the playing styles associated with them have been demonstrated by a number of conductors, Roger Norrington, Charles Mackerras, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt among them. Theirs proves to be a leaner, hungrier Brahms, revealing chamber-music potential and colours in scores which can, in the wrong hands, seem turgid. On the other side of the coin, here we have two chamber works which, like the Serenades, stand at the threshold of orchestral textures but whose richness must never become cloying. How, then, do these performances using period instruments fare? On balance I think moderately well, but Op.36 considerably better than Op.18. This is partly down to Brahms himself: in the five years separating these sextets he appears to have gained much in self-confidence, especially in his ability to inject the medium with contrapuntal rigour without its seeming a mere academic nicety. For whatever reason, the last movement of the B-flat Sextet is a difficult movement to bring off, and neither the composer nor Hausmusik seems to have an ultimate destination clearly enough in their sights. The rewards in this performance of Op.18 must be sought elsewhere in, for example, the closing pages of theAndante, whose folk-like drones are ushered in when the cellos vacate the stage to allow upper strings their imitation of a hurdy-gurdy, a delightful and other-worldly sonority. In similar vein, Hausmusik strikes just the right earthy, peasant quality for the Trio section of the following Scherzo. One important aspect of performance practice all too rarely effected in later nineteenth-century music finds an interesting outlet in the first movement. The ‘tempo rubato’ advocated by Wagner, and adopted famously by Mahler in his conducting, was typical of the era, and as liable to prompt erratic hastening of speed as much as relaxing into a broader, more lyrical idea. The first cellist of Hausmusik reacts accordingly; for a theme marked animato he whips up the tempo, his decision fully endorsed nine bars later when it is sung in octaves by first violin and viola.

Hausmusik’s accounts are well worth hearing, and they are far more than interesting historically-informed documents...

If Brahms produced a yet finer sequel to Op.18 in the G major Sextet (a finished work as opposed to a sketch, as has perhaps misleadingly been claimed), its superiority is underlined by a seemingly small aspect of the performances here which proves to have rather far-reaching consequences. Presumably in the interests of democracy, each of the group’s violinists gets a chance to lead. Whereas the pairs of violas and cellos are tonally quite closely matched, this is less true of the violins. In Op.36 the first violin is Monica Huggett’s, whose consistently sweet tone sits on top of the ensemble beautifully and effortlessly. By contrast, Pavlo Beznosiuk produces what might politely be called a more ‘throaty’ sound; for the higher registers of Op.18, which he leads, this results in a less well integrated soundscape, a situation not helped by the fact that his intonation is occasionally less than 100% accurate. Inevitably, in music whose density necessarily produces regular doublings, usually at the octave but even (perhaps unwisely on Brahms’s behalf?) in unison, intonation must be a major concern. The opening bars of the Poco adagio of the G major Sextet pose a related but somewhat different problem. Only three instruments are playing, violin 2 and viola 1 supporting the melody in violin 1 in accompanimental figures which are shadowing each other in ‘unscharfe Unisono’ (unsharp unison), to borrow the phrase Adorno coined for Mahler’s late works. An extraordinarily interesting effect, it warrants more care in both tuning and balance than it receives here. If all this seems hypercritical, it is because Hausmusik faces stiff opposition from its modern-instrument rivals, notably in the same pairing of works performed on Hyperion (CDA66276) by the Raphael Ensemble, recorded in 1988.

For me, the Raphael remains the benchmark, and random side-by-side comparisons only served to confirm my admiration for the earlier performances. One area where period-instrument string playing often wins outright is in the sheer range of colours explored, either via the left hand (rapidity or width of vibrato, application of portamento) or the right (note shaping through varied bow speed or pressure). Surprisingly, the Raphael Ensemble is more resourceful in these respects than Hausmusik: maybe not everyone will warm to their occasional spurning of vibrato altogether, but the effect can be magical. Nor does Hausmusk quite match the unbuttoned vitality that the Raphaels bring to the central Presto giocoso of the Scherzo from the G major Sextet, nor the Mendelssohnian lightness of touch they apply to its outer sections, an erstwhile piano gavotte which Brahms raised to an altogether higher plane here. And then there’s the last movement of the G major, a far more convincing finale than that of the first sextet. In terms of clinical statistics, only twelve or so seconds separate these two readings, yet you would swear it were more! Hausmusik is slightly slower, but it is more that their mood sounds just too careful. For infectious music-making in this movement, following on the heels of a most lovingly played and perfectly paced Poco adagio, the Raphael brush off all competition. Hausmusik’s accounts are well worth hearing, and they are far more than interesting historically-informed documents (though they are that too!). But ‘good’ is not enough, when superlative accounts such as those on Hyperion can be yours.

Peter Syrus