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Johannes Brahms : The Symphonies

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Classical - Released October 2, 2003 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone Record of the Year - Gramophone: Recording of the Month - Choc de Classica
For most listeners' purposes, Riccardo Chailly's set of Johannes Brahms' four symphonies will seem standard-issue, with respectable and uncontroversial interpretations from an esteemed conductor, and rich and resonant performances by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Even in the choice of filler pieces, the set includes the three orchestral works that are usually packaged with the symphonies: the Tragic Overture, the Haydn Variations, and the Academic Festival Overture. However, this set offers welcome suprises and extra value for the purchase. Two orchestral arrangements of the Interludes, Opp. 116 and 117 for piano, are included, along with instrumental versions of a handful of Liebeslieder Waltzes and three of the orchestrated Hungarian Dances, which may be incentives to listeners who are looking for a little more. Also included are Brahms' original version of the Andante of the First Symphony and the alternate opening of the Fourth. But no one should invest in a set solely on the basis of these extras, however unusual they may be. Since first recording the cycle with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where he offered a rather heavy-handed modern take on the symphonies, Chailly has gone back to an older, more historically informed style of playing Brahms that was familiar to conductors of the early 20th century. The music is lighter and more transparent, so in some ways, his recordings are sometimes reminiscent of classic performances by Bruno Walter, George Szell, and other revered conductors. For traditionalists, this is a fine set to own, especially if a fresh digital recording is needed.© TiVo
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Tchaikovsky: The Tempest, Francesca da Rimini, The Voyevoda, Overture and Polonaise from 'Cherevichki'

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Symphonies - Released May 19, 2023 | Chandos

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Qobuzissime
The first album from the young British conductor Alpesh Chauhan is an instant Qobuzissime! When the Chandos stable signs an emerging artist, we already know that their first release will be full of pleasant surprises. Here, the Birmingham-born conductor and an ardent defender of Russian music chooses Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful pages, skilfully avoiding the overplayed The Nutcracker, Eugene Onegin and Sleeping Beauty. It goes without saying they are classics for a reason, but the rest of Tchaikovsky's repertoire is well worth a deeper look. At the head of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Alpesh Chauhan dwells at generous length on the more expressive side of the Russian composer, who excelled in the projection of heart-rending pathos. From the Overture and Polonaise from the opera Cherevichki to the fantasy The Tempest and the Francesca da Rimini suite, Chauhan displays a visionary and circumspect intelligence of the different sections of the orchestra and the sudden diegetic changes, always executed with a hallucinating fluidity. Even more fascinating is the perfect legibility of the different timbres, impeccably individualised while they maintain great coherence within the ensemble. One leaves this disc with the feeling they’ve returned from a long journey, and with the conviction that one has witnessed the birth of a tremendous conductor. Rarely has Tchaikovsky resounded with such a sense of drama or with such inflections of immensity. Alpesh Chauhan will be creating dreams for much time to come. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 & Tragic Overture

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Warner Classics

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Schumann : The Four Symphonies

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Classical - Released August 1, 1993 | Warner Classics

Hi-Res Distinctions Diapason d'or - Choc de Classica - The Qobuz Ideal Discography
In 1973 the recording of an opera by Wagner, which Wolfgang Sawallisch was to perform in Dresden for Electrola/EMI, was canceled. By mutual agreement, the technical team and the musicians all the same decide to honor the contract and ... to engrave the Symphonies of Schumann. This initially negative circumstance will give rise to a recording of breathtaking beauty. Intensity of phrasing, rhythmic flexibility, warmth of the orchestra, everything is masterful here! (Qobuz)« Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Staatskapelle Dresden make fitting and eloquent interpreters of Schumann's four symphonies, each a highly distinctive work. The city of Dresden was the composer's home for six years, while Sawallisch was a keen advocate of his large-scale works. For all the energy and passion that Sawallisch communicates in these performances, he does not impose himself on the music; he is content to illuminate and reinforce Schumann's inspired, if sometimes idiosyncratic arguments.» (Warner)« Outstandingly good. I count theses performances of the Schumann Symphonies as among the best things Sawallisch has ever done. The playing of the Staatskapelle Dresden is superlative in every department. Not to be missed.» (Gramophone)
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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 & Academic Festival Overture

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released June 2, 2023 | Warner Classics

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Brahms: Symphonies Nos 1-4, Piano Quartet No. 1 (Orch. Schoenberg)

Luzerner Sinfonieorchester

Classical - Released April 7, 2023 | Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
This is the debut recording with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester by conductor Michael Sanderling, who recently ascended to the orchestra's podium as of 2023 when the album appeared. A set of Brahms symphonies, a crowded marketplace slot in the extreme, might seem a bold move in these circumstances, but nobody can accuse Sanderling of merely retreading others' steps. His Brahms is broad, slow, and detailed, seemingly opening the works into an expanded view. One attraction here, and one that could well bring buyers to the set on its own, is the rare Arnold Schoenberg orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, that concludes the album. Although all the melodic material in the work is Brahms', the work is quite characteristic of Schoenberg in its rich, brash orchestration. Schoenberg, in explaining why he made this version of a Brahms chamber work, said, "It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved." That statement might serve as well as a general characterization of Sanderling's symphony treatments here. All of his tempos are well on the slow side. The Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98, clocks in at well over 46 minutes, perhaps six minutes slower than average for the work. The rest are similarly measured, with exposition repeats adding to the overall heft. Sanderling fills the spaces with orchestral detail. Sample the opening movement of the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, where the slow introduction is atomized into small gestures that do, in his reading, have their parts to play in the music that follows. However, the big tunes, in this symphony's finale and elsewhere, lose some of their impact; the long line is not quite long enough to sustain them. Sanderling is probably at his best in the Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, with its compact thematic blocks in which he finds unsuspected layers. This new Brahms, also benefiting from the spacious acoustic of the new Orchesterhaus Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, certainly commands attention.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Brahms: The Complete String Quartets

Cleveland Quartet

Classical - Released January 1, 1973 | RCA Red Seal

Hi-Res Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Schumann: The 4 Symphonies by Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Classical - Released January 17, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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Schumann : Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3

John Eliot Gardiner

Classical - Released February 7, 2020 | LSO Live

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - 5 étoiles de Classica
The second album in Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Schumann series with the London Symphony Orchestra travels from glorious fanfare to dream-like passages with the lively 'Spring' and 'Rhenish' symphonies. From the dramatic first trumpet-call which awakens the frozen landscape, the First Symphony is a celebration of spring. It moves through the season and a gruff folk-song Scherzo until finally a jubilant conclusion dances into summer. Desperate, heartfelt and elegant, the "Manfred" Overture opens with an urgent impetus that only increases through the work, displaying the intense strife which lies ahead for its protagonist. Schumann’s Third is one of the composer’s most impressive, painting a euphoric picture of the German Rhineland in broad Beethovenian style and closing with an exhilarating finale. © LSO Live
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Chabrier: Orchestral Works

Neeme Järvi

Symphonies - Released April 18, 2013 | Chandos

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Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 - Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn

Maxim Emelyanychev

Symphonic Music - Released October 19, 2018 | Aparté

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Brahms: Symphony No. 1 & Tragic Overture

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Symphonies - Released September 25, 2020 | PentaTone

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Herbert Blomstedt, the honorary head of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra to which he was musical director for six years, is still active at the ripe old age of 93. Recorded in 2019, this new interpretation of Brahms’ Symphonie no.1 was conceived by Blomstedt, a devout Christian, spontaneously in wake of current times. “Rarely - he writes on the title page of the first chapter to this new integral - have we had more need for such light than today, when the entire world risks losing its soul”. In fact, the great American conductor of Swedish origin has moulded this interpretation into a humanist perspective that brings Brahms closer to Schubert. The work is gentle and calm with a lyricism akin to a lied. The Gewandhaus Orchestra plays like an immense chamber ensemble, giving this work an atypical tone in which its more rebellious moments seem to be smoothed out.   From this perspective, Brahms sounds somewhat Beethovian, particularly in how the Andante sostenuto is treated as it takes on the form of great love song calling for the unity of all men with an expressionism that is not far off the Adagio of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This recording is a great moment of live music captured exquisitely by the excellent technical team at Pentatone. The tragic opening, one of the high points of Brahms’ symphonic oeuvre curiously takes on an allure of nobility and classicism as if to quell the tensions that Herbert Blomstedt dreads so much in this world. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released April 22, 2024 | Warner Classics

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Brahms: Symphony No. 2 & Academic Festival Overture

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Symphonies - Released April 23, 2021 | PentaTone

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Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their complete Brahms symphonies project with a recording of the composer’s Second Symphony in D Major, alongside his Academic Festival Overture. Although idyllic and pastoral at first sight, Brahms himself remarked that he had “never written anything so sad”. Blomstedt and the orchestra bring out all the different moods and colours of this exceptional work, while the Academic Festival Overture provides a jubilant, glorious conclusion. Blomstedt’s work as a conductor is inseparably linked to his religious and human ethos, and his interpretations combine great faithfulness to the score and analytical precision with a soulfulness that awakens the music to pulsating life. In the more than sixty years of his career, he has acquired the unrestricted respect of the musical world. © Pentatone
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Brahms: Piano Quintet, Piano Quartets Nos. 1-3

Quatuor Hermès

Classical - Released November 16, 2018 | La Dolce Volta

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Mozart, Brahms & Mahler: Piano Quartets

Skride Piano Quartet

Chamber Music - Released February 1, 2019 | Orfeo

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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Brahms : String Quintets

WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne Chamber Players

Chamber Music - Released April 21, 2017 | PentaTone

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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 1-4; Alto-Rhapsody; Tragic Overture

Anne Sofie von Otter

Classical - Released January 1, 1996 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)