BaL 28.04.18 - Brahms: Symphony no. 1 in C minor

[jayne lee wilson]

I know what you mean Bryn, but the trick with Bernard Michael O'Hanlon is to ignore his trollish nomenclatures and focus on the sensible stuff - can be quite rewarding. After all, you don't have a problem with David H, do you?

But David Hurwitz seems to know a wide range of music and a very wide range of recordings, very well... he say what he thinks honestly if often irascibly. That particular Amatrolleur BMOH is only interested in endlessly reformulating his own limited wordplay - selfcentred attentionseeking insults and invectives, always at the same targets... whenever I see his name now I click away fast!

***
I've been trying to formulate a few thoughts of my own on Brahms 1st, the repeats, the oddly separate and distinct position it has in his output... but I can't pin it all down yet.... it does stand apart in his oeuvre, doesn't it? Musically and psychologically fascinating.

[Beef Oven!]

I've been trying to formulate a few thoughts of my own on Brahms 1st, the repeats, the oddly separate and distinct position it has in his output... but I can't pin it all down yet.... it does stand apart in his oeuvre, doesn't it? Musically and psychologically fascinating.

Yes, it's over-worked and overdone!!

I'm a newby Brahms fan and I find his first symphony the most mannered and unconvincing work of his that I've heard so far ... sorry

[MickyD]

... I don't know the Gardiner. I've rather gone off him of late - I did like his Schumann when it came out, but when I last listened it seemed somehow forced. Is his Brahms good?

I am planning to get the Mackerras, of which good things have been said...


.

To be honest and to my shame, I haven't listened to those Gardiner discs since I bought them some years ago. The one thing I do recommend about them are the intelligent and interesting couplings on each disc. Must give them a go again.

[Stanfordian]

To be honest and to my shame, I haven't listened to those Gardiner discs since I bought them some years ago. The one thing I do recommend about them are the intelligent and interesting couplings on each disc. Must give them a go again.

I've never shared this previously but in truth I'm not a great fan of JEG. To me his Bach cantata cycle generally felt underprepared and paled in comparison to cycles by Philippe Herreweghe, Helmuth Rilling and Masaaki Suzuki for example. I collected a few of JEG's cantata volumes but soon stopped.

I saw him conduct the LSO in Berlin a few years ago in Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5 ‘Reformation’ in a very uninspiring performance. In a few weeks I will be seeing him conduct Bach cantatas at Frauenkirche Dresden, so fingers crossed for an improvement.

[Alison]

Yes, it's over-worked and overdone!!

I'm a newby Brahms fan and I find his first symphony the most mannered and unconvincing work of his that I've heard so far ... sorry

Interesting. It’s a work I hardly ever think of listening to.

[visualnickmos]

...and I find his first symphony the most mannered and unconvincing work of his that I've heard so far ... sorry

I wouldn't mind betting that you'll eventually change your view!

[Petrushka]

I wouldn't mind betting that you'll eventually change your view!

I think so too! The 1st Symphony was almost the first work of Brahms I ever heard and 40+ years on I love it still. The performance that really did it for me was the 1976 Prom conducted by Sir Adrian Boult as I listened spellbound on R3 on a very hot summer's night in that summer of summers. Happily, that very performance is now on CD (on the ICA label, well worth your time and money).

[pastoralguy]

There's a story about Brahms 1 I'm very fond of.

Paul Hindemith was principal viola of a fine German Orchestra who, every year, would play Brahms 1. In the final movement, every conductor would stop at the moment before the solo horn enters and say 'Now first horn, please play this solo as if the sun is emerging over the horizon'. (Or words to that effect). The Orchestra would groan and the solo horn played it as he had always played it.

Anyway, one year, Bruno Walter is scheduled to conduct Brahms 1. 'Ah', thinks the Orchestra, 'there will be no comments about suns or horizons from HIM!' The rehearsals are terrific and Walter allows the horn solo to pass without comment. The band smiles. The concert is a great success and afterwards Hindemith wants to congratulate Walter on a fine performance. However, as he enters the conductor's room he sees Walter shaking hands with the principal horn and saying 'You know, when you played your solo in the final movement, it sounded like the sun peeping over the horizon...!'

[AmpH]

Yes, it's over-worked and overdone!!

I'm a newby Brahms fan and I find his first symphony the most mannered and unconvincing work of his that I've heard so far ... sorry

In which case I might point you in the direction of Andrew Manze and the Helsingborg SO on CPO - part of a complete cycle. Speeds are a little faster than one is used to hearing, though certainly not excessive - the pulse of the opening timps can come as a surprise - but the performance has a pleasing momentum and dynamic. Excellent clarity of orchestration reveals bags of inner detail with lovely woodwinds in particular. I found it to be a thoroughly refreshing alternative to some of the rather ( well known ) staid and plodding recordings out there.

[Barbirollians]

Happy to concur. No one should be put off in the slightest by the frankly typically idiotic review by one Bernard Michael O'Hanlon on amazon.co.uk etc. He's just another Amazon customer review troll.

Generally, worth ignoring his hatred of Abbado is remarkable.

[jayne lee wilson]

In which case I might point you in the direction of Andrew Manze and the Helsingborg SO on CPO - part of a complete cycle. Speeds are a little faster than one is used to hearing, though certainly not excessive - the pulse of the opening timps can come as a surprise - but the performance has a pleasing momentum and dynamic. Excellent clarity of orchestration reveals bags of inner detail with lovely woodwinds in particular. I found it to be a thoroughly refreshing alternative to some of the rather ( well known ) staid and plodding recordings out there.

One of my favourite cycles (for which Simeone had high praise in the IRR), and very well recorded by BIS-sister-label CPO... the CDs are great, the 24/48s better still. If I played a Brahms Symphony now (at least Nos 2-4!), it would be this, or Berlin PO/Harnoncourt, COE/Berglund, or SCO/Mackerras (not to mention Ticciati awaiting my discovery with the same orchestra). All of these, to some degree, "Make It New..."
But if I had to choose only one, it would probably be Mackerras, for the wonderfully expressive flexibility of tempi and phrase, the transparency, those sharp, fast and subtle dynamic gradations - all avowedly (according to the very detailed Telarc notes) researching back to performance practices of Brahms' own time, especially with his favoured conductor in Meiningen, Fritz Steinberg. Not to imitate, but to find fresh inspiration in a more fluid line, an elasticity of musical delivery. But those sudden dynamic contrasts, the baroque-like brilliance and prominence of the brass (achieved by using, according to the notes, "Vienna Horns in F, rotary-valve trumpets and narrow-bore trombones") keep the thrill-level high!
These are fast-response Brahms performances, entirely to the music's benefit, at least to these jaded ears.

I have the Mackerras 3rd on just now....really wonderfully fresh, even in the andante, flowing and singing like another scene by a brook...vibrato selectively but creatively applied, portamento surprising the modern ear with its frequency and beauty....now the poco allegretto...such a range of colour, shape, microdynamic: lovely, almost a cradle-song.
The Third has long been my favourite, but maybe I'm less jaded a Brahmsian than I thought.

[Beef Oven!]

I wouldn't mind betting that you'll eventually change your view!

However, I do like it. But I think the other three symphonies are better.

Like Alison says in post #65, I don't listen to it often .............

[Beef Oven!]

In which case I might point you in the direction of Andrew Manze and the Helsingborg SO on CPO - part of a complete cycle. Speeds are a little faster than one is used to hearing, though certainly not excessive - the pulse of the opening timps can come as a surprise - but the performance has a pleasing momentum and dynamic. Excellent clarity of orchestration reveals bags of inner detail with lovely woodwinds in particular. I found it to be a thoroughly refreshing alternative to some of the rather ( well known ) staid and plodding recordings out there.

Perhaps. Paavo Berglund and the COE really helped me with the symphonies in general, a few years ago.

Anyway, I've got Dvorak at the moment ...

[BBMmk2]

I will most definetley investigate the SCO/Mackerras and that one on CPO looks like another to have a look at. This Forum can be very naughty at times!

[Goon525]

Interesting that no one here mentions the Chailly cycle, which I enjoyed hugely. Superb playing by the Gewandhaus, excellent Decca recording (especially in hi res), and after I raved about it (I’m not suggesting causality!) it went on to win Gramophone's Record of the Year.