BaL 1.06.13 - Brahms Symphony no 2 in D

[makropulos]

Lots of good choices already!

For a hair-raising experience - and the most thrilling (if occasionally untidy) finale I've ever heard, Bruno Walter live with the Orchestre National in Paris (1955, on Tahra and elsewhere)

A few other favourites:
Walter/NYPO (I understand what others are saying about the Columbia SO remake, but I prefer the electricity of the earlier one)
Mackerras/SCO (the smaller forces reveal all sorts of details, and it's superbly conducted)
Jochum/BPO (several votes for this already, I know)
Manze (a lovely, relaxed tempo for the first movement, among other things)

I definitely want to hear Jurowski now.

[Pabmusic]

...At about 3'40" Walter offers a technical solution which is both quite surprising and wonderfully humane

Yes it is, isn't it?

[silvestrione]

When I want to just listen to this symphony (i.e. not trying out a new recording etc but going for something I trust) I go for the Vienna Phil and Karajan in 1949....another one of those post-war performances that seem more than usually charged. To me it makes a lot of modern versions seem a touch complacent (is that it? Self-indulgent?) and has something of Furtwangler's sense of the shadows in the music, as well as tremendous drive, and symphonic logic. Closing pages are perhaps a little disappointing, partly because the recording can't handle it.

I am tempted by the talk of Jurowski though.

[verismissimo]

I rather grew up on Monteux's Brahms. So this morning I listened to his 2nd with VPO from 1959.

Good, but not as special as in my ear's memory.

[Nick Armstrong]

If anyone is interested and is a French speaker (or rather, listener), I could provide a copy of the blind tasting France-Musique programme where Jurowski blew away yer Karajans, yer Kerteszs, yer Abbadi and yer Rattles... Actually there'd be something to be got from it just hearing the extracts and trying to 'spot the winner'...

[vinteuil]

I think I'll wait until Krivine does it.

[Nick Armstrong]

I think I'll wait until Krivine does it.

Very nonchalant, vindepaysdescoteauxdemurviel, very nonchalant...

[vinteuil]

Very nonchalant, vindepaysdescoteauxdemurviel, very nonchalant...

... I thank you!


What I meant was - I already have various - traditional (Jochum and others ); HIPP-ish (Norrington) - what I am waiting for is to see if Krivine can do as wonderful a thing with the Brahms as he has done with the Beethoven symphonies...

[amateur51]

Very nonchalant, vindepaysdescoteauxdemurviel, very nonchalant...

Wasn't he French Foreign Minister & Prime Minister under de Gaulle?






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Couve_de_Murville

[vinteuil]

Wasn't he French Foreign Minister & Prime Minister under de Gaulle?






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Couve_de_Murville

... ah, Ammy, it dates thee and me - that we even remember Couve de Murville!

We could probably do a whole nostalgia thang - Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece, so rhymingly memorable...

[vinteuil]

. Couve de Murville!
...

... tho' coteaux-de-murviel more fun:

http://avis-vin.lefigaro.fr/connaitre-deguster/tout-savoir-sur-le-vin/guide-des-regions-et-des-appellations/languedoc/appellation-vin-de-pays-des-coteaux-de-murviel

[verismissimo]

... ah, Ammy, it dates thee and me - that we even remember Couve de Murville!

We could probably do a whole nostalgia thang - Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece, so rhymingly memorable...

Problem is: can I do the current PMs of France, Greece... India, New Zealand etc. Fraid not.

[vinteuil]

Problem is: can I do the current PMs of France, Greece... India, New Zealand etc. Fraid not.

... you lose five points for not knowing Jean-Marc Ayrault; you lose fifty points for not knowing Αντώνης Σαμαράς; you lose twenty points for not knowing Manmohan Singh; you lose no points for not knowing John Key...

[verismissimo]

... you lose five points for not knowing Jean-Marc Ayrault; you lose fifty points for not knowing Αντώνης Σαμαράς; you lose twenty points for not knowing Manmohan Singh; you lose no points for not knowing John Key...

Actually, I knew John Key. I fibbed about that one. Can I lose extra points for fibbing?

[amateur51]

... ah, Ammy, it dates thee and me - that we even remember Couve de Murville!

We could probably do a whole nostalgia thang - Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece, so rhymingly memorable...

And dear Dom Mintoff of Malta, who rubbed everyone up the wrong way, and died only the other day at a great age

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/9490070/Dom-Mintoff.html