I always enjoy reading anything you write about violin music, and your
review of the Tenenbaum/Kapp collaboration of the Brahms sonatas is no
exception.  Likewise, I share your enthusiasm for the Heifetz/Kapell
benchmark interpretation of the 3rd sonata.  However, if I may add my
two cents, I wonder at how the first movement of the first sonata-- the
"rolling" chords of the piano notwithstanding-- can possibly induce the
vision of a "large ship leaving the harbor," "large ship" being the
operative words.  In fact, what I love about that first movement is
exactly the opposite in concept-- compared to the other two first
movements, in my mind it is the most natural and organic, and consequently
the least pretentious.  To me there is a complete naturalness of weight
and warmth in the opening theme.  The opening theme is child-like in its
simplicity and directness, and it makes me feel that Brahms, in those
first few measures, was releasing his own inner child.  The rapturous
and agitated temper you mention in the development is something I begin
to hear already at the end of the first theme's introduction, and this
mercurial whimsy which constantly reappears, never completely disappearing,
is probably what most reminds me of a child or even a teenager, but never
an object so inanimate as a ship.

Although I have several decent recordings of the first sonata, including
Robert Mann's Gidon Kremer's, I think my ideas and appreciation must
come from Bronislaw Humberman's heart-rendering performance, which is
available on Arbiter.  I'd love to hear you review it some day.

Sincerely,
hector aguilar