Sergey Khachatryan, Lusine Khachatryan - Brahms: Violin Sonatas (2013)

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Sergey Khachatryan, Lusine Khachatryan - Brahms: Violin Sonatas (2013)

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Sergey Khachatryan’s fifth recording on Naïve, and second with his sister, is dedicated to the three luminous and deeply romantic sonatas for violin and piano by Johannes Brahms. Spread over ten years, from 1878 to 1888, the three sonatas are contemporary with his four symphonies and are flanked by the Violin Concerto in D major (1878) and the Double Concerto for violin and cello in A minor (1887).

A distinctive, gifted, often heart-rending violinist, Sergey Khachatryan has been establishing a brilliant career worldwide, in both recital and concerto fields. His recording of the Shostakovich concertos with the Orchestre National de France under Kurt Masur [v5025] was a Gramophone Choice.

Sergey's exclusive recital partner is his sister, pianist Lusine Khachatryan, which whom the musical connection has always been very special. Together, they regularly perform at the most prestigious venues in the world, such as London's Wigmore Hall, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Cité de la Musique (Paris), Auditori Nacional Madrid, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall (New York) and Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

In early 2014, Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan will perform this Brahms programme at the Wigmore Hall and in other prestigious European venues.

Recorded in July & August 2012 at Wigmore Hall.

Composer: Johannes Brahms
Performer: Sergey Khachatryan, Lusine Khachatryan

Reviews: It’s possible that I’m a bit more familiar with Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan than are some readers, for I was sufficiently impressed by his 2003 recording of the Sibelius Concerto to acquire his CD of the Shostakovich concertos when it came out in 2007, and his CD of the Franck and Shostakovich sonatas when it was released in 2008. I’ve not acquired or heard Khachatryan’s Bach unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas, which Robert Maxham spoke ill of in 34:2, but for Khachatryan’s Shostakovich concertos Maxham had nothing but words of praise in 30:6, adding the disc to his 2007 Want List one issue later.


When I listen to Khachatryan (b. 1985), I’m reminded of another young, award-winning violinist of approximately the same age, this one Russian, Ilya Gringolts (b. 1982). The reminder, however, is one of contrasts rather than of similarities. You see, I also have Gringolts’s recording of the Sibelius Concerto with Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, made not long after Khachatryan made his recording of the piece with Emmanuel Krivine and the Sinfonia Varsovia, and the differences are stark. Both violinists are virtuosos of the first order, nowadays something that almost goes without saying. But Gringolts belongs to what I call the “slash and burn” school of playing, which is to say that sheer beauty of sound is not infrequently sacrificed on the altar of go-for-broke risk-taking and the coarsening of tone that inevitably comes with the hard-driving performance approach.


That said, I’m fully aware that preferences in manners and styles of playing are largely a matter of taste, and so it’s with that in mind that I count Sergey Khachatryan a violinist much more to my personal liking than Gringolts. From the very opening strains of Brahms’s G-Major Sonata, I hear in Khachatryan not just a violinist with impeccable technique and radiant tone, but an artist of high intelligence and a musician of the highest ethical sensibilities. To no small degree, his Brahms reminds me of David Oistrakh’s, with Gina Bauer in the First Sonata and with Richter in the Second and Third sonatas.


Nothing is exaggerated, overstated, or pressed. No gratuitous portamentos interrupt the smooth flow of the lines. Only the natural ebb and flow of Brahms’s phrases, with which Khachatryan and sister Lusine rise and fall in sublime unanimity, are made manifest in these gorgeous readings. Just listen to the transcendent beauty of the second theme in the first movement of the G-Major Sonata, to how it expands to embrace an exalted state of ecstasy. In one breath, this has gone from being just another recording of Brahms’s violin sonatas to my absolute favorite, surpassing in wonder and glory even the Stefan Jackiw and Max Levison version on Sony whose virtues I extolled in 34:4.


Everything I’ve said and then some applies to the Khachatryans’ readings of the A-Major and D-Minor sonatas as well. Listen to and be gripped by the terrifying tale Brahms tells in the last movement of the D-Minor Sonata. Never have the parallels to the first movement of Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata been clearer. But for me, what makes Sergey’s performance so transfixing is that he delivers Brahms’s uncharacteristic outburst of spite and spleen with nary a scrape or scratch of the bow. How much sharper is the cut from a scalpel than from a blunt blade.


Even if you have half-a-dozen or more recordings of these sonatas on your shelf, shift them around, throw one out, do whatever you have to do to make room for this one; it’s truly special.