BRAHMS, J.: Serenades Nos. 1-2 (Dresden Philharmonic, Bongartz) / Hungarian Dances (excerpts) (Leipzig Gewandhaus, Neumann)

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That Brahms' orchestral serenades are next to unknown compared with his symphonies and concertos is a crying shame. Written while the composer was still in his early twenties, they reveal a more relaxed, a more comfortable, a more romantic side of Brahms' art. His D major Serenade is an expansive six-movement work with a central Adagio non troppo as sweet-tempered and optimistic as Mozart in his orchestral serenades. His A major Serenade is a more intimate five-movement work scored for winds and low strings with the freshness and openness of Haydn in his wind serenades. But for all their charms, the serenades are relatively under-represented in recordings. There are no recordings of either work by Böhm, Furtwängler, Karajan, Klemperer, Solti, or Walter and even the adventurous Bernstein recorded only the A major. Still, the serenades haven't altogether lacked for persuasive advocates -- Abbado with style and class, Boult with wit and geniality, and Kertész with warmth and color -- so it's hard to see what reissuing these dull and drab recordings by Heinz Bongartz and the Dresden Philharmonic adds to the catalog. Taped in harsh and pitiless sound in 1962, simply hearing the recordings is fatiguing; actually listening to them is deeply dispiriting. Bongartz seems to have little feeling for the music -- his tempos are inflexible, his phrasing is mechanical, his textures are thick, and his colors are gray. In Bongartz's hands, the music sounds at best trivial and at worst negligible. The Dresden Philharmonic sounds similarly unenthusiastic, uninterested, and uninvolved. Even in the A major Serenade's lyrical solo writing, the winds seem unwilling to do more than play the notes. The coupling of Czech conductor Vaclav Neumann and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester 1966 recording of orchestrations of Brahms' Hungarian Dances adds 10 tracks and about a half an hour to the second disc, but not much more. Neumann, a stalwart but rarely inspired conductor, sounds unsure of himself with the East German orchestra, which responds with loud, noisy performances that emphasize the trumpets, drums, and bombast and downplay the strings, winds, and sentimentality. Listeners who already know and love the Abbado, Boult, and Kertész recordings of the serenades may be tempted to try the Bongartz recording to hear another point of view. It is a temptation they should resist.

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