Brahms Symphony Cycles

[mikealdren]

How times have changed! As a teenager, these recordings were way out my price range in their original DG Lp issues. Many a Saturday morning was spent lusting after them in Rae Mackintosh's shop in South Queensferry Street in Edinburgh. (Which is now a burger bar...)

Yes, probably worth a thread in it's own right. My first LP was Campoli's Bruch/Saint Saens on Ace of Clubs at 22/6d followed by various Helidor releases at 12/6d. Full price at 39/6d was well beyond my pocket money. Interestingly I think my early Gramophone magazines were either 1/10d or 2/- but I no longer have them to check (and beer was bout the same price per pint!)

I also bought 2nd hand from Melvyn Devoy (?) in Glasgow by mail order. Anyone else remember him?

[HighlandDougie]

I also bought 2nd hand from Melvyn Devoy (?) in Glasgow by mail order. Anyone else remember him?

He started off in Dumbarton Road. In the early 1960s, having left my mother to go round the shops in Central Glasgow, my father would take my younger brother and I (on the tram) on an excursion taking in a visit to his Aladdin's cave of a shop, which also sometimes included a trip across the Clyde in a pedestrian ferry and back on a steam-hauled suburban train to Central Low Level from Whiteinch Riverside. My obsessive interest in LPs, CDs and the like stems, I'm pretty sure, from those visits. Sorry to be so OT but reading Mike's post brought back a sudden memory of Mr Devoy's shop.

[mikealdren]

Just mail order for me but I found some amazing things on his lists and always looked forward to the large flat packs arriving.

[Barbirollians]

The 1p Brahms 2 and 3 are next to be auditioned . I love HVK's Philharmonia Second so am looking forward to it

[Petrushka]

There's a Brahms cycle I've not yet heard included in the 'Art of Svetlanov' box which I've recently had and played by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. I'm all for that unique Russian sound in Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky but even I might baulk at getting it in Brahms. Sure to be a novel experience!

[visualnickmos]

There's a Brahms cycle I've not yet heard included in the 'Art of Svetlanov' box which I've recently had and played by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. I'm all for that unique Russian sound in Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky but even I might baulk at getting it in Brahms. Sure to be a novel experience!

I found that set in (Brahms) years ago, second-hand in Saint-Etienne. Olympia/Melodiya label.
I, like you, was quite excited at the forthcoming Russo-Brahms listening session. I'll say, err, - nothing.....
...see what you think!

'Novel', it is - one way of putting it...

[Beef Oven!]

I've been listening to an awful lot of Brahms symphony recordings in the past few days on long walks, jogging and open-air gyms. I must say I'm really taken by this music after nearly 30years!!

Really loving the Barbirolli set on Warner Classics that I bought recently. The sound quality is astonishing for the period. EMI had remastered the recordings in 24 Bit with the intention of releasing them as part of their Signature series as SACDs, but went bust before they cpould get them out!

Must mention Szell and Karajan too. Again, very good recordings from the 1960s (were the 60s the peak in terms of classical recordings?).

Decided to order the Thielemann Staatskapelle set. Heard good things about it. Also includes a DVD of the Pfcs and vc (Pollini and Batiashvili).

[slarty]

Hi Beefoven, you won't be disappointed by the Thielemann. Great performances all, and all from live performances,
the bonus DVD is worth the purchace price on it's own.
This is a tremendous set. highly recommended.

[Beef Oven!]

Hi Beefoven, you won't be disappointed by the Thielemann. Great performances all, and all from live performances,
the bonus DVD is worth the purchace price on it's own.
This is a tremendous set. highly recommended.

Thanks Slarty, can't wait to get my hands on it!!

Yes, I forgot they are live performances, all the better, IMV.

[Tetrachord]

I don't have a Brahms 'set'. (In fact, I don't buy sets, but I did buy Harnoncourt/CEO Beethoven recently because I was presenting a lecture on the late conductor.) Having heard Kleiber's Brahms 2# and 4# I know these are the ones for me. Otherwise, by an unintended piece of symmetry, I have Karajan's #1 and #3. I've owned Kleiber's Brahms#4 since the inception of the CD and have always loved it dearly, but have only recently heard his Brahms #2. These 4 Brahms symphonies and Beethoven's "Eroica" are my favourite, desert island symphonies. And until I heard Kleiber's Brahms #2 I had never realized how deeply melancholy all these symphonies are. The 4th was described recently - particularly the passacaglia - as 'inconsolable'. Kleiber's correspondent, Dr. Charles Barber, speaks about the 'tidal passacaglia'. Oh yes.

(In fact, I think Brahms was the last great symphonist. What came contemporaneously and afterwards were sprawling great things. In fact, Kleiber described Mahler's symphonies as "a neurotic mess". Yes, he wore his heart very obviously on his sleeve in a very Tchaikovskian way!)

It might affect some people to learn, as I have only recently, that Kleiber's award-winning Brahms #4 with the VPO was found in the CD player of his Audi the day after he died in Slovenia. He had driven from Munich, across the Alps, to Slovenia where he died approx. 24 hours after getting there. Nobody ever saw him alive again after he got out of that car. I found the anecdote about the CD excruciatingly painful.

[Barbirollians]

I don't have a Brahms 'set'. (In fact, I don't buy sets, but I did buy Harnoncourt/CEO Beethoven recently because I was presenting a lecture on the late conductor.) Having heard Kleiber's Brahms 2# and 4# I know these are the ones for me. Otherwise, by an unintended piece of symmetry, I have Karajan's #1 and #3. I've owned Kleiber's Brahms#4 since the inception of the CD and have always loved it dearly, but have only recently heard his Brahms #2. These 4 Brahms symphonies and Beethoven's "Eroica" are my favourite, desert island symphonies. And until I heard Kleiber's Brahms #2 I had never realized how deeply melancholy all these symphonies are. The 4th was described recently - particularly the passacaglia - as 'inconsolable'. Kleiber's correspondent, Dr. Charles Barber, speaks about the 'tidal passacaglia'. Oh yes.

(In fact, I think Brahms was the last great symphonist. What came contemporaneously and afterwards were sprawling great things. In fact, Kleiber described Mahler's symphonies as "a neurotic mess". Yes, he wore his heart very obviously on his sleeve in a very Tchaikovskian way!)

It might affect some people to learn, as I have only recently, that Kleiber's award-winning Brahms #4 with the VPO was found in the CD player of his Audi the day after he died in Slovenia. He had driven from Munich, across the Alps, to Slovenia where he died approx. 24 hours after getting there. Nobody ever saw him alive again after he got out of that car. I found the anecdote about the CD excruciatingly painful.

Brahms 2 melancholy ? Not when Bruno Walter .Boult or barbirolli conducted it.

[rauschwerk]

(In fact, I think Brahms was the last great symphonist. What came contemporaneously and afterwards were sprawling great things

What a truly extraordinary assertion. Surely Vaughan Williams, not to mention Sibelius and Nielsen, wrote at least one great symphony! None of them sprawled.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What a truly extraordinary assertion.

That is a very polite description, rauschy, for which I thank and commend you.

[Barbirollians]

That is a very polite description, rauschy, for which I thank and commend you.

I have got got hold of the Memories CD of that Brahms 2 I think it is thrilling and uplifting .i do not really hear what Tetrachord does in it .

[cloughie]

Brahms 2 melancholy ? Not when Bruno Walter .Boult or barbirolli conducted it.

Or Kempe, Monteux, Klemperer, Kubelik or several others...