BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE:
Brahms’s two sonatas are arguably the best known in the entire clarinet repertoire and are among the most frequently performed and recorded. Written at the end of the composer’s life, they are predominantly lyrical and reflective in character although the F minor work, in particular, reminds us of his younger days with references to the fiery gypsy styles which inspired him. These pieces are almost entirely lacking in virtuosic passagework, and successful performance depends more on tone quality and interpretative phrasing than technical prowess.

Colin Bradbury’s playing belongs to the English tradition alongside, among others, Jack Brymer and Gervase de Peyer, with a wider and more vibrant sound than continental or American players. For me, these works are the perfect medium for this type of playing where richness and warmth of tone add so much to the expressive, Romantic mood. However, in this respect Karl Leister is hard to beat, for although his sound is more focused, the sheer liquid quality he obtains is wonderfully seductive.

Bradbury plays in a beautifully natural way without resorting to the forced rubato adopted by some artists in a contrived attempt to be different, and he allows the music to speak for itself. His tempi for the slow movements of each sonata are considerably faster than those of Leister and, for my taste, less effective particularly in the F minor work. Overall though, these are excellent readings and as impressive as any I have heard. The coupling is unusual but most welcome since the sonata by Hindemith, well known by clarinettists, has been seldom recorded.
Performance * * * * Sound * * * *
Tim Payne

MUSICWEB:
This is inspired programme planning. The emotional world of the Hindemith is not a million miles away from that of the Brahms, but its spiky harmonic vocabulary remains far enough away to carry sufficient contrast to the Romantic weight of the two heftier Sonatas.

The Brahms Sonatas take up the lion’s share of this offering, and Bradbury and Roberts are more than equal to their demands. Any doubts harboured after the F minor’s first movement (great on detail but in need of a long-range sense of line) are effectively forgotten by the end. There is real chamber music dialogue in the Andante un poco adagio, and the finale is true to the vivace marking. The Allegretto grazioso shines brightest in this performance, however: autumnal, like a half-caught memory and yet conjuring up an Austrian Landler in the process.

The same musicianly qualities grace the E flat Sonata. The final variations are strongly characterised and Bradbury’s half-tone in the first movement is a joy. The Hindemith merely adds to the pleasure afforded by this CD: the final pianissimo of the first movement hangs magically in the air whilst the playful second and fourth movements offer aural balm.

Competition is not as fierce as might be imagined in the Brahms and this coupling is, anyway, unique. Bradbury and Roberts provide a rewarding musical experience. Performance * * * * (*) Recording * * * *
Colin Clarke

FANFARE:
My first exposure to the Brahms clarinet sonatas was via an ancient mono Westminster recording featuring Leopold Wlach and Jörg Demus (long deleted). Over the intervening years I have acquired, among others, Karl Leister and Jörg Demus’s performance on DG, Evgeny Petrov and Valery Pyastetsky’s slightly Russian-style but nonetheless (or all the more) enjoyable foray on a deleted Etcetera release and an intriguingly subtle, almost Debussian account by Duo Asiatica on CRSC (also apparently deleted). Each of these is a technically secure and individually characterful performance.

This Colin Bradbury/Bernard Roberts release is generally competitive in that company. Sonically, it roundly outclasses Leister and Demus’s otherwise fine but comparatively dry and shallow late-60s offering on DG. Divine Art finds a more satisfactory balance between clarinet and piano, and certainly registers the latter instrument’s mid and lower frequencies more effectively. The greatest challenge in recording these sonatas is to strike a truly enlightening balance between the piano and the clarinet. This problem is further compounded by Brahms’s extreme and often mercurial demands. Despite their seemingly modest instrumentation, these are sonatas of great dynamic range. An able clarinettist can fill the space of a recital hall as well as can an able trumpeter. He can also produce the most fragile of pianissimos. Brahms’s piano parts likewise veer between the thunderingly rhetorical passages of the First Sonata’s opening movement and the delicate filigree of much that follows it, and that largely informs the poetry of the Second Sonata. Divine Art’s engineer and producer have opted to meld the two instrumental sounds by slightly compressing the overall dynamic range. This creates an effective feeling of ensemble, of intertwined voices, but muddies a good deal of the piano’s bass and midrange detailing, especially in the more thunderous passages. More’s the pity, because Bernard Roberts is a fine pianist who is generally well attuned to the dynamic nuances of the music before him. Colin Bradbury’s clarinet sound is more sumptuous in all registers than that of Leister, but his interpretative approach lacks the subtlety of Duo Asiatica’s Song Tu, or the often beguiling inflections of Etcetera’s Evgeny Petrov. Things are, however, all shipshape. Bradbury’s technique is faultless, as is Roberts’s as they take us down two faultlessly middle of the road performances.

These performances of the Brahms clarinet sonatas are in no danger of supplanting my still all-time favorites – those by Harold Wright and Peter Serkin, recorded back in 1992 on Boston Records (deleted). The Serkin/Wright approach to both sonatas is far more episodic, nuanced, poetically informed, and compelling than any of the performances cited above. Their dynamically unbridled approach to the alternating moments of passion and repose of the First Sonata is spine-tingling, and their realization of the Second Sonata is variously oracular, enchanting, and suffused with innigkeit. Next to these readings, those of Bradbury/Roberts seem foursquare and perfunctory. Bradbury/Roberts’s foray into the Hindemith sonata is more successful. Here the music responds well to their even-keel tempos and their doggedly exemplary clarity.
William Zagorski

YORKSHIRE POST:
This recording rekindles a musical partnership between two distinguished musicians which stretches back almost 30 years. Bradbury is perhaps best known as the former principal clarinet of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Roberts as a solo pianist with a particular affinity with Beethoven.

The two Brahms sonatas, separated by the 1939 essay by Hindemith, reveal them as thoughtful, sensitive chamber musicians, each listening to the other to create mature and memorable performances. The recording is clear, if a shade lacking in warmth. Performance * * * *  Recording * * *