Brahms Symphony Cycles

[Petrushka]

I've recently developed a bit of an obsession with playing the Brahms symphonies of late and find more in them than I would have thought possible even a few years ago. Perhaps it's a sign of the advancing years but I couldn't possibly live without them now whereas in my callow youth I dismissed them as 'old man's music'. How very silly! They are every bit as revolutionary in their way as Beethoven and as full of passion.

I've got numerous recorded cycles, 17 at the last count, and far too many to list here but my favourites are Bruno Walter/Columbia SO and Bernard Haitink/Boston SO.

What do these symphonies mean to you and what are your favourite recordings?

[Conchis]

Walter is very, very good.

Toscanini/Philharmonia on Testament may be the best I have heard - it's very pricey, though I picked it up for £1.99 in a charity shop recently. :)

Klemperer is also essential in these symphonies.

Of modern versions, I like Abbado's BPO cycle best.

[pastoralguy]

Well, I managed to wear a tape of Boult's symphony no. 2 after I heard it played by the SNO under Sir Alex Gibson in 1977. I'd actually gone to hear an up and coming fiddle player called Nigel Kennedy play the Mendelssohn violin concerto. I was bowled over by the Brahms and immediately borrowed the Boult tape from my local library which I played so many times it broke! (The librarian was very sympathetic.)

I then purchased the Loughran/Halle cycle on CfP (one a week!) and that was my introduction to a cycle. I listened to them recently on cd and found that they were as good as I remembered them.

My next purchase was the Karajan 1978/79 cycle on DG (one a month!) I still think the are terrific. Incredible playing!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Boult was the LP cycle I bought as a student, recently reacquired on CD as part of the big EMI Boult "Bach to Wagner" box. Chailly is my only other cycle though I have a fair few single-CD and -LP alternatives of each symphony.

Boult is the cycle I'd hang on to, partly because for sentimental reasons and partly because my CD-player and the Chailly don't always get along

[Beef Oven!]

I really struggle with Brahms (full stop). My first cycle was Abbado’s BPO when DG released it in 1992 (IIRC). A great set, but somehow the works didn’t stick. Paavo Berglund’s skinny Brahms with the COE did a great job in getting me interested again, especially in #4, but then it waned again. Along the way I collected 1, 2 & 3 from Karajan’s analogue DG cycle and all four of his later digital set (plus all the earlier ones in the EMI 88 CD Karajan box set from 2008). But I haven’t listened for a while.

In the last week or so I took delivery of Yannick Nezet-Seguin’s Schumann cycle and I’ve fallen in love with RS’s symphonies (another set of symphonies I’ve really not grasped, down the years). I have played my Karajan, Haitink and JEG sets quite a lot lately. This made me think of Brahms and maybe I should have another try. I watched the Karajan documentary this afternoon on iPlayer and watching him conduct Brahms really exited me.

I think I’m beginning to get it. Perhaps because I’m getting old? To help the process, I have ordered Skrowaczewski’s set on (account of being very impressed with the Bruckner cycle I bought two weeks ago). Symphony #1 has already arrived, but I’ve not listened to it yet.

Interestingly, of the countless concerts I have attended over the last 25 years, to the best of my recollection, I have only been to concerts of 1 and 2 and I don’t remember being to no.s 3 or 4 (whereas with Bruckner 8 for example, I am well into double digits).

Edit: I have a Testament CD of #1 recorded at the RFH with HvK & BPO. That always hits the spot!

[EdgeleyRob]

Just two complete sets here,Karajan DG 60s and Cleveland Szell (this is a terrific cycle IMO)plus a couple of single discs.
I've never thought of Brahms as old man's music,I remember being very excited and thrilled when I first discovered the symphonies in my late teens.
These days though I find his chamber music more rewarding

[Beef Oven!]

......I've never thought of Brahms as old man's music

I kinda still do.

And it doesn’t help that we only ever see images of him when he’s older, rounder and with that awful beard!

He wasn’t born 40!

Let’s think of a younger Brahms!!!

[visualnickmos]

I don't actually have a Karajan Brahms set, but should I decide on one, which set of HvK's to choose?

One set that I love, is Bruno Walter's. Others that I enjoy, in no particular order, Klemperer, Solti (not to everyone's taste, I appreciate, but great playing combined with superb recordings technically) Haitink (Concertgebouw) How do they compare with his Boston set, I wonder?

Good thread, this one...

[jayne lee wilson]

I guess the Brahms Symphonies are in my musical freezer for now, whilst I continue to have an obsession with the German Requiem (just downloaded Herve Niquet's - wait for it - 51'00 version. And very it is.).

Still, always nice to have an excuse to show this again.... quite the loveliest cover art ever attached to them. And as it happens, the last cycle I fell in love with, wondrously remade and remodelled in glorious 24/48 sound, and as it also happens, more impressive every time I returned to them over several years...





(For big-band-Johannes, I previously favoured Sanderling with the Staatskapelle, but those scratchy-sounding old Navigators did them no favours.... as with Neumann's Martinu Cycle you'd have to seek them out via the Mastersonics again, like this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brahms-Symp...ies+sanderling

The only one I ever got, but a total transformation of the sonics....)

[Petrushka]

Szell's cycle is one I haven't got so that's one for the wish list.

Like BeefO, I struggled with Brahms for a long time despite the odd concert outing here and there. Loved No 1 from the outset ( a terrific 1976 Proms performance from Boult, now on CD, sticks in the memory) but it took me many years to grasp No 2. Haitink's Boston SO Prom in 2001, which I attended, was a major factor in getting to grips with it, then one Sunday morning in 2004 I played Haitink's LSO disc and all of a sudden the penny dropped. The Second is now probably the one I like best: the sheer manic, brassy exuberance of the very end of the symphony seals it for me. What a masterpiece it is!

[Beef Oven!]

Szell's cycle is one I haven't got so that's one for the wish list.

Like BeefO, I struggled with Brahms for a long time despite the odd concert outing here and there. Loved No 1 from the outset ( a terrific 1976 Proms performance from Boult, now on CD, sticks in the memory) but it took me many years to grasp No 2. Haitink's Boston SO Prom in 2001, which I attended, was a major factor in getting to grips with it, then one Sunday morning in 2004 I played Haitink's LSO disc and all of a sudden the penny dropped. The Second is now probably the one I like best: the sheer manic, brassy exuberance of the very end of the symphony seals it for me. What a masterpiece it is!

Egg wetter gree about #2, I find that it’s the one I like most, these days. I too haven’t got to Szell yet, but I’ve heard and read a lot of very good things about it. I like the look of the Manze that Jayne posted (in fact Ive found it on Apple Music and Spotify and I’ve got #1 on as I type).

[Petrushka]

I kinda still do.

And it doesn’t help that we only ever see images of him when he’s older, rounder and with that awful beard!

He wasn’t born 40!

Let’s think of a younger Brahms!!!]

In a way, you've answered your own question. Thinking of a younger Brahms is the key that unlocks the secret to these symphonies, in my view. Think of Clara because Brahms certainly did!

Barbirolli's VPO cycle has been criticised for being too stodgy and ponderous but listening to them when purchased just after Christmas I felt as if there was a fire lit from within in his interpretation which is quite extraordinary and the VPO play like angels for him.

[visualnickmos]

Szell - yes, I'd forgotten that set. Fantastic! One of the first complete sets of anything I ever acquired....didn't even touch it for years, then a few years ago I had my Brahms 'cathartic' moment with his Szell set....

[Beef Oven!]

In a way, you've answered your own question. Thinking of a younger Brahms is the key that unlocks the secret to these symphonies, in my view. Think of Clara because Brahms certainly did!

Barbirolli's VPO cycle has been criticised for being too stodgy and ponderous but listening to them when purchased just after Christmas I felt as if there was a fire lit from within in his interpretation which is quite extraordinary and the VPO play like angels for him.

I suppose as it’s after 9.30, we can talk about Clara like that!

Barbirolli, now I hadn’t thought of him. I imagine he’d be excellent in Brahms. Sadly, I’ve never even heard a drop!

[Petrushka]

Szell - yes, I'd forgotten that set. Fantastic! One of the first complete sets of anything I ever acquired....didn't even touch it for years, then a few years ago I had my Brahms 'cathartic' moment with his Szell set....

A bit pricey on Amazon. Surely a set ripe for re-issue as a Sony box?