Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 - CD

“Vintage Boult performances recorded at the Proms. The Brahms has tremendous forward momentum, while the Mendelssohn exudes virtuosity.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2013 ****

“[Jansons’s account of these two Brahms symphonies] is notable for the care taken with articulation, phrasing and balance, and for the disciplined force of his Bavarian orchestra. All the more disappointing, then, that No 1 receives a performance that is generally so dull...Happily, in No 4, Jansons’s qualities come fully to the fore. Here everything is alive, and dullness is banished.” Sunday Times, 15th July 2012

“it's clear from the volatile wistfulness with which Jansons phrases its opening bars that he just loves the Fourth Symphony...This is undoubtedly a reading to return to.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2012 ***

“Throughout [the first] movement an assured Jansons successfully provides generous quantities of beauty, sadness and even menace...Jansons and his Bavarian Radio colleagues are impressive Brahmsians. Any serious collector should be happy to hold this set of Brahms’ symphonies.” MusicWeb International, August 2012

“the glory of this disc is Brahms 1 - an Andante of unalloyed bliss.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2011 ****/*

“The Schumann [Fourth] shows powerful structural conviction … It begins by striking just the right ominous note, and the Allegro grows from this compellingly … Krips’s avoidance of easy sentimentality is welcome, as is his refusal to linger affectionately over passages that please him at the expense of overall vision. Transfers are up to Decca’s customary high quality, giving a clean, immediate sound.” Gramophone Magazine

“Krips’s smiling, companionable approach is so sympathetic” Gramophone Magazine (Schumann Symphony No. 1)

“An extremely fine performance in many ways with plenty of weight and sense of purpose. The playing of the Vienna Philharmonic is both sensitive and splendidly alive; the slow movement is thoroughly felt and eloquently phrased. Krips’s reading combines strength and tenderness, power and lyrical feeling” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms Symphony No. 1)

“Superb… There are no histrionics about Krips’s reading, in which everything is beautifully proportioned and carefully calculated. The music moves forward to its natural climaxes, in each of the four movements, with a wonderful feeling of inevitability that leads logically and dramatically to the crowning achievement of the great Finale. The orchestral playing is sensitive, vigorous, and poised to a nicety, and the recording does full justice to it.” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms Symphony No. 4)

“Gardiner brings a delightful crispness and spontaneity to the work: he creates great sweeps of emotion without sacrificing inner details, and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique respond to him by playing with warmth and passion.” METRO, 3rd September 2010

“[The motets] provide a surprising context for the symphony, given in a transparent, analytical performance by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Harmony and counterpoint gleam, with no aural smudges and not a jot of bookish didacticism.” The Observer, 12th September 2010

“...the variety of tone, dynamic and texture from Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique is consistently well defined...A no-prisoners account of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture opens a programme that explores Brahms' choral influences, with pristine excerpts of Gabrieli, Schütz and Bach.” The Independent on Sunday, 12th September 2010

“Gardiner's highly energised, raw-boned account, superbly played by the ORR and never dwelling unduly on inessential expressive details, has a real sense of culmination, of the end of a creative journey that the whole series of recordings has illuminated in a genuinely original way.” The Guardian, 16th September 2010 ****

“The symphony is upstaged by choral works (Schütz, Gabrieli, Beethoven and Brahms) which illuminate its creative background. The jewel is Brahms’s wondrous Geistliches Lied, giving the Monteverdi Choir its finest hour.” Financial Times, 17th September 2010 ***

“this disc is a triumph of imaginative programming, an education for anyone wishing to hear the music that inspired the composer...Gardiner’s approach is the antithesis of the muddy sound of most “classic” recordings. His tempi are brisk yet flexible, as Brahms wanted, but he refuses to sentimentalise the music.” Sunday Times, 26th September 2010 ****

“everything seems in focus: not just the tempo, but also the rhythmic drive and urgency seem absolutely right in the third and fourth movements...This performance gives a lively sense of what that authentic Brahms sound might have been like, and the music gains enormously - not an ounce of flab on these textures” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 *****

“It's fascinating to hear the Bach cantata movement that inspired that Finale, with the orchestra in its comfort zone. The little-known choral pieces are done well.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 ****

“Textures are as transparent as chamber music. Phrases and ideas are nuanced, but disciplined...In short, Gardiner and his orchestra have placed the work firmly within the classical tradition, as a natural continuation from Brahms' symphonic idol Beethoven, rather than the seamless precursor to Wagner.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 2nd November 2010

“…the Pittsburgh Symphony - increasingly one of the nation's finest - could easily be mistaken for a top German orchestra, like Leipzig or Dresden, in this music. The refulgence of the playing is a constant source of pleasure and any conductor who is as mindful of Brahm's ingenuity, invention and sheer vision as Janowski demands to be heard. The Hungarian Dances... are earthy and sinewy with plenty of surge factor in the lower strings and the requisite cheekiness in the phrasing exemplified by those traditionally tantalising hesitations and stompling downbeats.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2009

“It's been true for many years now that American orchestras have been sounding more middle- European, but the Pittsburgh Symphony could easily be mistaken for a top German orchestra, like Leipzig or Dresden, in this music. Listen to the slow movement of the Fourth Symphony where Marek Janowski really has his players leaning into the harmonic radiance of the writing. All those wondrous transfigurations evolve so naturally and so dreamily that the brawny exuberance of the Scherzo – tough and resilient in Janowski's hands – really does come as an unexpected blast.
Approaches differ greatly with regard to the highly innovative first movement, the whole of which constitutes a development of sorts. So, how soon do the darkening clouds descend? For some they cannot descend soon enough. But here it's as if Janowski is delaying the inevitable right through to the high anxiety of the final pages. He tightens the screw relatively late in the movement. The slow movement then restores some sense of prior well-being and inner calm, as does the still centre of the finale with its tranquil flute and trombone-led chorale variation. The refulgence of the playing is a constant source of pleasure.
The Hungarian Dances come in Brahms and Dvorák's orchestrations, their kinship self-evident.
They are earthy and sinewy with plenty of surge factor in the lower strings and the requisite cheekiness in the phrasing exemplified by those traditionally tantalising hesitations and stomping downbeats.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“A rhythmically taut, finely structured reading with plenty of dynamism ad thrust, but giving full rein to the work's deep elegiac aspects.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2007

“It's a rhythmically taut, finely structured reading with plenty of dynamism and thrust, but giving full rein to the work's deep elegiac aspects and darker shadings.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2007 ****

“The LPO, London's finest Brahms ensemble, has been in vintage form during this cycle under Marin Alsop's measured and thoughtful direction.
Not since the classically incisive Loughran/ Hallé recordings of the mid-1970s has there been a more obviously collectable budget-price Brahms set.
Alsop's reading of the Fourth Symphony is not dissimilar to Sir Adrian Boult's 1972 LPO recording. Like Boult, Alsop is happy to establish a tempo and emotional trajectory for each movement and leave it at that – a plausible view given the astonishing degree of thematic integration that underpins the work.
As elsewhere in the cycle, tempi tend to be measured.
The Andante moderato is downright slow, though Alsop manages to maintain line and interest.
The Scherzo, happily, is a true Allegro giocoso, which is important. By acting out the role of a conventional finale, the Scherzo leaves the actual finale free to enact its own tragic destiny.
The recording sounds well if played at a decent level. In the Scherzo, the triangle (deliciously placed and recorded in the Hungarian Dances) is more an impression than a presence. There is also an editing glitch midway through the movement, not the first in this series. The seven Hungarian Dances, unorchestrated by Brahms, are heard in newly commissioned orchestrations by Peter Breiner. The thudding fairground timpani in No 6 doesn't appeal. Elsewhere, piquancy is the watchword, with stylish playing from the LPO, gamesomely led.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The LPO, London's finest Brahms ensemble, has been in vintage form during this cycle under Marin Alsop's measured and thoughtful direction.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2008

“Alsop’s triumphant cycle of Brahms symphonies with the LPO comes to a climactic end with this hugely impressive account of the Fourth. She has that ability, vital in music as dense as this, to hurry nothing, to make the most of the moment, yet always to maintain a sense of impetus.” Sunday Times