This pairing should be familiar from LP days and from a previous reissue. The new remastering in DG’s The Originals series makes for cleaner, less harsh sonics. The performances remain recommendable, especially the Beethoven, where Ferenc Fricsay leads a sensitive, many-sided performance. He charts the course of the first movement’s Allegro, guiding the tenderly nostalgic opening to unfold logically toward its more positive, forward-looking conclusion, which shares the final Rondo’s assertive energy. Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s somewhat wiry violin is amply compensated for by Geza Anda’s powerful pianism and Pierre Fournier’s wonderfully phrased, aristocratic cello. The Beethoven may not displace the equally fine version by Karajan and his Russian all-stars (Richter, Rostropovich, and Oistrakh) but it surely occupies a place alongside it.
The Brahms is on a somewhat lower level of accomplishment. Fricsay’s leadership, so detailed and strong in the Beethoven, here is forward-moving but more generic. And while Schneiderhan’s timbre becomes more of a liability in Brahms’ Romantic framework, Janos Starker is excellent, playing with verve and poetry. Szell, with Oistrakh and Rostropovich, and Ancerl, whose winning soloists are Suk and Navarra, make me momentarily forget that this is a piece I’ve never been able to work up much enthusiasm for. In that company, this one’s an also-ran. The Beethoven was recorded in 1961, the Brahms a year later. Both are in stereo that wears its age quite well, its only wrinkles showing in sometimes cloudy tuttis and spotlighting of the soloists.
