Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Op. 68

Album review

Born in 1920 and dubbed by Toscanini, who saw in him his successor, Guido Cantelli could have become one of the greatest figures of orchestral conducting in the 20th century on a par with Giulini or Karajan. A plane crash on the tarmac of Orly airport (Paris) brought his life to an abrupt end at the age of thirty-six, leaving the musical world in disarray. The young conductor was much more than a promise. Appointed to the musical direction of La Scala in Milan, there was also talk of giving him the direction of the New York Philharmonic, which would have changed the career of the young Leonard Bernstein.
He leaves a dozen official recordings made in London for His Master's Voice and in New York for RCA Victor. They contain such gems as this exciting version of Brahms' First Symphony recorded at Abbey Road in 1954. Solidly built, Cantelli's design takes the magnificent instrumentalists of the Philharmonia Orchestra to the top. The expression is ardent, the tempi lively and nervous, and the art of singing unfolds from beginning to end, leaving aside the heaviness and excess of solemnity that too often taint this symphony walking in the Beethovenian footsteps, but written by a man in the prime of life. © François Hudry/Qobuz