BaL 1.06.13 - Brahms Symphony no 2 in D

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I studied this work for A-level, buying the VPO/Kertesz recording for study. The were two things I cursed about this:
2. The exposition repeat. I'd heard it once. I'd analysed it and the sonata form process had led me to a new tonality. I didn't need to hear it again. (and, yes, I know Brahms wrote it, but that was in the days when recordings did not exist, so it made more sense to drill the basic material into the listeners' minds before going on to the exposition.

Gosh! I didn't know that Kertesz's performance was so bad that it made listeners want to avoid the Expo repeat! And, as I'm sure you know, the Expo repeat has nothing to do with "drill[ing] the basic material into the listeners' minds" (before going on to develop it) - but with the architecture and timing of events. Reaching bar 233 too early (which is the inevitable result of omiting the repeat) is equivalent to reaching a climax too early in other aspects of life. It's sort-of okay, but rather disappointing when one's expectations have been aroused so well.

And Brahms was quite capable of leaving out Expo repeats when they weren't essential, as you'll remember from your "A"-Level studies - there isn't one in the First Movement of the Fourth Symphony.

[Hornspieler]

Gosh! I didn't know that Kertesz's performance was so bad that it made listeners want to avoid the Expo repeat! And, as I'm sure you know, the Expo repeat has nothing to do with "drill[ing] the basic material into the listeners' minds" (before going on to develop it) - but with the architecture and timing of events. Reaching bar 233 too early (which is the inevitable result of omiting the repeat) is equivalent to reaching a climax too early in other aspects of life. It's sort-of okay, but rather disappointing when one's expectations have been aroused so well.

And Brahms was quite capable of leaving out Expo repeats when they weren't essential, as you'll remember from your "A"-Level studies - there isn't one in the First Movement of the Fourth Symphony.

FHG: Message #22

My favourite of the Brahms symphonies (what horn player would not say that?) but I have always found those first-time bars upsetting and out of character with the rest of the movement. I don't want to be abruptly catapulted back to the opening of the movement. (I feel exactly the same about Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony.)

So I agree with Eine Alpensinfonie on this one (and so did Herbert von Karajan, among other distinguished Brahms interpreters.)

HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My favourite of the Brahms symphonies

Mine, too, HS - and possibly my favourite piece by this Titan of composers.

So I agree with Eine Alpensinfonie on this one (and so did Herbert von Karajan, among other distinguished Brahms interpreters.)

Yes, I admit that it is a minority view. Just me and Brahms, so far.

[jayne lee wilson]

Mine, too, HS - and possibly my favourite piece by this Titan of composers.


Yes, I admit that it is a minority view. Just me and Brahms, so far.

I'm in the repeat club with you...

... sometimes, as with say, Mahler 6, one might sigh as we go back, but I always miss it when it's not there - as you say, for architectural reasons and I would add, to emphasise that essential contrast of statement/development. Again, works which specifically don't repeat - like Brahms' 4th, LvB Op.59/1, wouldn't be able to spring their structural surprise without the background expectation of a repeat. The Mahler 6 finale is a sonata-structure, but in a constant state of metamorphosis, with the statement/development contrast constantly coming to the surface - so no repeat there (imagine...!). Or take Classical Concerto form, at least as found after Mozart & LvB, where the repeat is of course always, necessarily, a varied one...

So we have to assume that Brahms and others ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING with this bis-ness... it can never just be a case of mnemonics for a sleepy, inattentive audience. With their dangers of overfamiliarity and boredom, the availability of recordings has only obscured the truth about repeats and their meanings.

But you do wish that conductors would sometimes do more with a repeat than just repeat it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Reading HS's post reminds me of the wonderful recording of the work by Bruno Walter that should have gone on my earlier list. Intensely lyrical and with superb, "natural" orchestral balance. ("Natural" in inverted commas because, as this clip shows, there's always quite a bit of artifice involved in getting things to sound so "natural"!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aztB7E1Wjbs

As Jayne says, how can you have just the one recording of this work?

EDIT: Cross-posted with JLW's post, for which, my deepest thanks.

[EdgeleyRob]

Cleveland Orchestra/ Georg Szell

x 2

[Petrushka]

Wasn't the Furtwaengler live VPO second recording in the Musikvereinsaal with the 'barbarians at the gate' in spring 1945, IIRC?

This concert was given on January 28 1945 with a first half consisting of the Cesar Franck Symphony.

The Russians had over-run Auschwitz the day before and were less than 100 miles from Berlin. One can only wonder what was going through the minds of the VPO players and Furtwängler as they played Brahms' sunniest symphony.

[amateur51]

Reading HS's post reminds me of the wonderful recording of the work by Bruno Walter that should have gone on my earlier list. Intensely lyrical and with superb, "natural" orchestral balance. ("Natural" in inverted commas because, as this clip shows, there's always quite a bit of artifice involved in getting things to sound so "natural"!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aztB7E1Wjbs

As Jayne says, how can you have just the one recording of this work?

EDIT: Cross-posted with JLW's post, for which, my deepest thanks.

I love the Walter clip especially the advice at 3:48

And yes, how can it be just one version? - this piece really does cry out for the Interpretations on Record approach or Cali's French jury/Innocent Ear approach

[gurnemanz]

If downloads are admissible, shouldn't Sanderling/Dresden be in there?

[verismissimo]

Good opportunity to listen again to the six (I think) recordings I have of this marvellous work:

BPO/Furtwangler (1952), VPO/Monteux (1959), BPO/Kempe (1958), BPO/Bohm (1966), Dresden SK/Sanderling (1973), Leningrad PO/Mravinsky (1978).

Bohm was my first - much loved to this day. But how to choose between them?

[cloughie]

I studied this work for A-level, buying the VPO/Kertesz recording for study.

You must have been well off as a student - the affordable ones at the time were Kempe and Monteux. Strangely these are still ones I love - but as ferney said there are few bad recordings. No2 is very much my favourite Brahms symphony and among my favourite Sym 2s of which there are many good ones.

[BBMmk2]

I have three, Rattle, Szell and JEGGERS

[Andrew Preview]

Digital: Abbado/BPO (if only, only, only he'd included the Expo repeat, this would be the best ever recording of the work:

Sorry ferney, but, as Akiralx attests, Abbado really does observe the repeat. Apart from the fact that his performance of the first movement takes almost 21 minutes (which would be extraordinarily slow without the repeat), the other big clue is that after 5 minutes and 22 seconds, the orchestra plays the exposition again.

[Petrushka]

The Second was the last of the four that I came to love and it took me a long time. I've now got a 14 recordings but my favourites are both from Haitink, that with the LSO and the other with the Boston SO.

I would have expected Szell's cycle to have appeared in one of those Sony boxes by now along with his Beethoven.

As many have said, it's an impossible task to choose just one and even more impossible to own just one! Pushed to opt for one I'd go for LSO/Haitink. I haven't heard Jurowski.

[teamsaint]

The Second was the last of the four that I came to love and it took me a long time. I've now got a 14 recordings but my favourites are both from Haitink, that with the LSO and the other with the Boston SO.

I would have expected Szell's cycle to have appeared in one of those Sony boxes by now along with his Beethoven.

As many have said, it's an impossible task to choose just one and even more impossible to own just one! Pushed to opt for one I'd go for LSO/Haitink. I haven't heard Jurowski.

So there is hope for me yet....still working on it, still researching. Think I need to hear it live.