A Romantic salon

Abstract

This selection of Romantic chamber music runs from Beethoven to Brahms, from pianistic poetry to glittering ensemble works, and from the intimacy of the salon to the show-stopping brilliance of the concert stage. Wending our way past familiar stalwarts and novel finds becomes a welcome journey through the 19th century. We begin with Ludwig van Beethoven: Complete works for cello and piano (Resonus res10254, issued 2020, 148′) from Robin Michael and Daniel Tong, which offers up Beethoven’s works performed here on modern copies of period instruments as an opportunity to ‘reassess’ the development of Beethoven’s compositional style. The liner notes point out ways in which innovations associated with Beethoven’s larger pieces (for example the First, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Symphonies and the Missa Solemnis) are prefigured in these sonatas and variation sets; despite setting out to trouble the received understanding of Beethoven’s ‘three periods’, they end up reinforcing that...