Barry Douglas - Johannes Brahms: Works for Solo Piano, Volume 1 (2012)

Irish pianist Barry Douglas has largely avoided recording, but has made a substantial reputation on the concert stage. You'd think he might have cultivated a commanding, public style, but in this first-in-a-series album of Brahms piano works, he instead offers quiet, finely wrought interpretations. The programming concept itself is a bit involved, but Douglas pulls it off: instead of offering short works in complete sets, he picks and chooses in order to create a convincing sequence of moods and modes of expression. Here, Douglas sets Brahms' late works against broader works from earlier in the composer's career. His control over the Intermezzo, Capriccio, and Romance sets of Opp. 116, 117, and 118, is extraordinary, and few pianists have ever evoked so well the quintessential reaction to late Brahms: that when you hear the performance just once, you have an uncanny feeling of barely having scratched the surface. In Douglas' hands, the larger Rhapsodies, Op. 79, and the Ballade in B major, Op. 10/4, almost inspire relaxation: here Douglas turns up the volume and revels a bit in the melodies. It's almost as if these are intermezzi among the brutally complex actual intermezzi. The largest piece on the program, the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, takes on a slightly ecstatic quality in its finale placement, akin to the variation sets in late Beethoven. Quiet though it is, this is an ambitious, arresting, and often profound set of Brahms piano pieces, beautifully recorded.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

A purple Brahms patch from this fulsome-toned pianist proves to be more than 77 minutes of warm, enveloping delight. Barry Douglas’s approach is straightforward and eschews any temptation towards novelty for the sake of it; instead, he goes for the music’s emotional jugular, enhanced by beautiful, rich tone and structural rigour.

His selection from the late piano works juxtaposes pieces of contrasting character, mixing and matching them according to their nature rather than chronology; and he captures Brahms’s spirit in the sound itself – a traditional approach, perhaps, but still ideal, with all its opaque Viennese darkness and eloquent legato. Even with a resonant background and plenty of pedal, there is clarity, too: his voicing of contrapuntal lines is masterfully handled. The choice of pieces is gorgeous, and includes a short escapee from Brahms’s early works – the last of the Ballades, Op. 10 – which sits surprisingly well amid Brahms’s Indian summer works, as if proving that the latter grew from seeds planted much earlier.

The climax is provided by the Handel Variations, where Douglas seems to exult in contrasted characterisations, unified by crisp rhythms, an oak-strong centre and a tautly woven contrapuntal fabric with luxurious sheen. It builds to a magnificent and spacious fugue. But even with all that logic, intellect and muscular sound in place, Douglas still allows his head to be led ultimately by his heart, which is what gives the disc its X Factor. Realised with deep affection in a welcoming acoustic (Cambridge’s West Road concert hall), this is a very satisfying listen.

Review by Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine