BaL 1.06.13 - Brahms Symphony no 2 in D

[Hornspieler]

...and Brahms 2 is bigger than one man's opinion - and my opinion - it's the best Brahms Symphony and there are many fine recordings. Just a thought regarding 2nd symphonies generally. There are few bad ones - the composer has got over the angst and teething troubles of the first and still have loads of fresh ideas having mastered the skill of symphonic writing.

To name just a few:-

Beethoven
Borodin
Elgar
Prokofiev
Rousell
Schumann
Sibelius
Tchaikowsky
Vaughan Williams
Walton

All fine works, but not to be dispaging about some of the above who also hit the heights with their first efforts.

HS

[verismissimo]

To name just a few:-

Beethoven
Borodin
Elgar
Prokofiev
Rousell
Schumann
Sibelius
Tchaikowsky
Vaughan Williams
Walton

All fine works, but not to be dispaging about some of the above who also hit the heights with their first efforts.

HS

Bruckner? Mahler?

[salymap]

Well,Walton and Mahler 1sts for me anyway.

They may have gained experience but in MHO they were never bettered.

[amateur51]

I see the listomaniacs are out in force today - must be the fine weather

[Alf-Prufrock]

Just to add a new name to the extensive list, and open another can of worms, there is also Carlos Kleiber's performance on DVD. I think it wonderful. Sometimes DVDs/Blurays are included in Record Review, but often not. I wonder what the criterion is.

[LaurieWatt]

Well,Walton and Mahler 1sts for me anyway.

They may have gained experience but in MHO they were never bettered.

Except that, despite his problems in putting the whole thing together, Walton's 1st is infinitely preferable to his 2nd! i have tried really hard but just cannot get there!

[LaurieWatt]

Actually re- reading Sally I think she agrees!

[Thropplenoggin]

Just to add a new name to the extensive list, and open another can of worms, there is also Carlos Kleiber's performance on DVD. I think it wonderful. Sometimes DVDs/Blurays are included in Record Review, but often not. I wonder what the criterion is.

I was so curious I had to seek it out instantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APYhgPuozIc

In a possible case of Jungian-esque synchronicity (though not quite up there with M. de Fontgibu, Deschamps and plum pudding - see under 'examples' in previous link), I began watching a Kleiber documentary this morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycu0vJQJODM

DVD is here, for those interested.

[pastoralguy]

What a charmer!

I was lucky enough to met him at a BBCSSO concert at the City Halls in Glasgow where he was doing a talk on Sibelius's Tapiola. I spoke to him about the Robert Simpson symphony's which he'd reviewed on CD Review and he was very erudite.

Good guy!

[Thropplenoggin]

I was lucky enough to met him at a BBCSSO concert at the City Halls in Glasgow where he was doing a talk on Sibelius's Tapiola. I spoke to him about the Robert Simpson symphony's which he'd reviewed on CD Review and he was very erudite.

Good guy!

This comes as no surprise. I enjoy his 'Discovering Music' snippets before the evening performance, though this now truncated programme is another thing oft-bemoaned on these boards. For a quasi-noviciate like me, they provide the perfect entrée primer before the plat principale.

[silvestrione]

I enjoyed this BAL. One error of fact: Karajan's Philharmonia recording was described as his 'first' of this work, but it was of course his second, there's a very powerful post-war performance with the VPO, extraordinarily intense, worlds away from anything mellow or autumnal etc.

[jayne lee wilson]

Except that, despite his problems in putting the whole thing together, Walton's 1st is infinitely preferable to his 2nd! i have tried really hard but just cannot get there!

Absolutely, Laurie - Walton trying very hard to be THAT Walton again, and only just succeeding, for a moment or two, in the lento. Yet Walton recovered and composed the very fine Hindemith Variations....

Of course there are 2nd Symphonies that bear little relation to the composer's 1sts, Shostakovitch, Roussel and.. oh yes, someone called Vagn Holmboe, among them...
and what about Sibelius? I've always had a strong preference for No.1 over No.2...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Absolutely, Laurie - Walton trying very hard to be THAT Walton again, and only just succeeding, for a moment or two, in the lento. Yet Walton recovered and composed the very fine Hindemith Variations....

Oh, TOSH!

The First Movement of the Second Symphony reveals the composer exploring harmonic areas he'd never imagined before: it glows with a infectious delight in the composer's regenerated powers, tempered by the wisdom of experience and age. The Lento is deeply moving, but resists the temptation to wallow; there's a glorious and affectionate sense of self-mockery there, too which I find very endearing.

Pity about the Finale; it's as if the strain of composing the first two movements had completely spent his powers, and there's just a routine run-through of variations on a not-particularly-interesting theme before the composer finally bores even himself and brings the work to a perfunctory close. Still the best piece he wrote after 1940.

[Thropplenoggin]

Oh, TOSH!

The First Movement of the Second Symphony reveals the composer exploring harmonic areas he'd never imagined before: it glows with a infectious delight in the composer's regenerated powers, tempered by the wisdom of experience and age. The Lento is deeply moving, but resists the temptation to wallow; there's a glorious and affectionate sense of self-mockery there, too which I find very endearing.

Pity about the Finale; it's as if the strain of composing the first two movements had completely spent his powers, and there's just a routine run-through of variations on a not-particularly-interesting theme before the composer finally bores even himself and brings the work to a perfunctory close. Still the best piece he wrote after 1940.

[Thropplenoggin procures popcorn and sits back to watch the intellectual firework display.]

[jayne lee wilson]

Oh, TOSH!

The First Movement of the Second Symphony reveals the composer exploring harmonic areas he'd never imagined before: it glows with a infectious delight in the composer's regenerated powers, tempered by the wisdom of experience and age. The Lento is deeply moving, but resists the temptation to wallow; there's a glorious and affectionate sense of self-mockery there, too which I find very endearing.

Pity about the Finale; it's as if the strain of composing the first two movements had completely spent his powers, and there's just a routine run-through of variations on a not-particularly-interesting theme before the composer finally bores even himself and brings the work to a perfunctory close. Still the best piece he wrote after 1940.

Sorry to disappoint Throstles, but I've tried long and hard with Walton 2 and have given up. I can hear the features fhg describes in the first movement of course, but for me they simply don't add up to a convincing or memorable structure or statement. The harmony is indeed earpricking, but the thematic invention and development seem shallow here, with too much tilting at the same rhythmic windmills. Apart from a more contrasted lyrical episode (around 6'00 in Szell's recording) I also find it quite monotonous, chasing down the same burrows, coming up with little. And there's no getting around this particular finale-problem!

I would envy you, fhg, in finding so much there, but, the lento aside, I'd need another lifetime to do so. This reminds me of our differences over Rachmaninov's 3rd!
(I might say that the Hindemith Variations stand in relation to the Walton Symphony No.2, as the Symphonic Dances do to Rachmaninov's 3rd...)

(Sorry about the rabbits running into windmills. Perhaps I'm hungry).