Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Sergiu Celibidache was one of the truly unique, unconventional conductors of the 20th century. When Furtwängler was banned from conducting after the Second World War, Celibidache restructured the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted it until Furtwängler’s return. However, after Furtwängler’s death in 1954 and the subsequent appointment of Herbert von Karajan as his successor, Celibidache’s relations with the orchestra were broken off. Over the ensuing years, up to the moment that he took on the Munich Philharmonic in 1979, Celibidache never tied himself to a single orchestra for any length of time. Instead he led a truly nomadic existence as a restless artist. He seldom travelled to musical centres such as Vienna.

His concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from October 1952, now released in its entirety by Orfeo thus offers interesting insights into a time when Celibidache still seemed to be weighing up his options. In Brahms’s First Symphony he comes across as more urgent in his tempi than was the case with the conductor we know from later years and from his later recordings. However, he was already outstanding in his sense of tone colour and in his ability to get his orchestral musicians truly to listen to one another. This is evident in 'Les Préludes'at the beginning of the concert, and above all in the 'Concerto for the Left Hand', played by none other than Robert Casadesus. With his pianistic refinement, French clarity and aristocratic command, it was not surprising that Casadesus became the interpreter of this work. In his collaboration with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Sergiu Celibidache, he succeeded in exemplary fashion in maintaining the tension throughout that is characteristic of this concerto, and in making the most of the grotesque nature of many of its episodes. A fascinating encounter between two great musicians.

A weighty symphony, swaying Viennese waltzes and fiery Hungarian dances make up the colourful programme when Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra engage with Johannes Brahms in Opening Doors, the team’s acclaimed series of Romantic orchestral composers. Johannes Brahms was only twenty years old when Robert Schumann hailed him as one whose genius gave rise to the greatest symphonic hopes. It is therefore striking that he didn’t complete his First Symphony until more than twenty years later, in 1876 – even though the earliest sketches for it date back to 1855. Brahms – who once said that he constantly heard the ‘giant’ Beethoven ‘marching behind him’ – had such a deep respect for what his great predecessor had achieved with the genre that he for a long time doubted that he would ever be able to write a symphony of his own – by the time he did, it must have been gratifying to him that it was hailed as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. While working on the symphony, Brahms composed his Op.52, the cycle Liebeslieder-Walzer ‘for piano four-hands (and song ad libitum)’. He kept the forces as flexible as possible: the waltzes were performable with or without voices; if used, the vocal parts could be sung either by soloists or by a choir. Even so, he was soon asked for another version, for choir and orchestra. Brahms initially rejected this idea, but finally agreed to make a partial orchestration: selecting eight of the Op.52 waltzes, he supplemented them with an early version of one of the not yet published Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op.65. Around the same time, he was asked to orchestrate another collection of dances composed for piano four-hands: his first set of Hungarian Dances, which had quickly become a great hit. It took him four years to comply with this wish, and even then he only accepted to orchestrate three of the dances, leaving the field open for various other arrangers (including Dvořák) to satisfy the demand for more.

These two performances featuring Klaus Tennstedt (1926–1998) and the Stuttgart RSO were separated by only forty-one months, and yet Tennstedt’s life changed dramatically during this short period. In 1971 he escaped from the German Democratic Republic and by 1973 he had settled at the small opera house in Kiel.

But by spring 1974, he had appeared in North America with the Toronto Symphony and by December of the same year, he conducted the Boston Symphony in an all-Brahms programme. By 1976, he was established in both Europe and in the United States as a master of the core Austro-German repertoire.

The Martinu° Symphony No.4 typifies Tennstedt’s interest in more obscure repertoire during his early period in Germany. It is given a highly charged performance in this 1973 ‘live’ studio recording.

The Martinu° is a new addition to Tennstedt’s discography. It also highlights the work of this lesser known but very important composer (a set of the complete Martinu° Symphonies won a Gramophone Award in the Orchestral category in 2012).

The live 1976 concert performance from Göppingen of Brahms’s Symphony No.1 demonstrates Tennstedt’s great affinity with this symphony in a dramatic and urgent reading. It is far superior to his studio account made in 1983.

This recording marks a new and exciting relationship between ICA Classics and the SWR in Stuttgart. This is the first release of this material outside Japan.

Vintage Karajan recordings of Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras, re-mastered and available at super budge price.

Conductor Klaus Tennstedt enjoyed a close and enduring relationship with the London Philharmonic Orchestra that resulted in his appointment as the Orchestra’s Principal Conductor and Music Director in 1983, later becoming its Conductor Laureate. Renowned for his interpretations of the German Romantic repertoire, Tennstedt once said he loved the LPO so much because ‘it is a romantic orchestra’.

Here he conducts the Orchestra in live concert performances of Brahms’s Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. This Symphony No. 1 performance in 1992 was one of the conductor’s last concerts with the LPO. As the conductor struggled with illness, every one of his late concerts in London became an event, as if any could be his last, and the acute atmosphere of his last London appearances shines through in this performance.

One year after the successful release of the 2nd and 3rd symphonies by Johannes Brahms, the present double CD now completes the full cycle of Brahms’s symphonies, as performed by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Mariss Jansons. Only a few weeks ago, Mariss Jansons finished the recording of the 4th symphony in Munich’s Herkulessaal. Along with his 1st symphony (“Beethoven’s Tenth”), it puts the finishing touch on the complete performance of Johannes Brahms’ symphonic works, compositions oriented around the creativity of his great role model, yet in many ways also forward looking and innovative.

The first complete Brahms cycle with Mariss Jansons.

A brand-new recording from February 2012.

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserlautern and has been associated with the musicians of Saarland Radio for decades. This autumn he is touring with the orchestra in China and Japan.