This set includes the first issue of Brahms's Third Symphony and completes Gunter Wand's survey of them all. I find it the most satisfying of his interpretations of the four: it is one of those performances where your confidence is established right at the start by the full-blooded approach, so you feel confident that it will be sustained right to the end—and so it turns out. Wand gets superb playing from the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, with markedly good phrasing from the strings (not that the woodwind and brass are less sensitive; but they are individual players and good artists and can be expected to phrase well). And there is a satisfying assurance about the violins' playing of Brahms's testing high passages, especially in those sudden jumps up to high notes in the finale. Wand also understands what Brahms means by the use of the direction sostenuto. Both middle movements are excellently done, with the third movement played as a real poco allegretto, a difficult movement to choose exactly the right tempo for, so that it has a light lilt while not being taken too fast. And, unexpectedly in view of the three symphonies already recorded, Wand observes the repeat of the first movement's exposition, which he does in none of the other symphonies.
You are offered the set as a whole, so the old question arises about how recommendable it is complete. On the credit side EMI get each symphony complete on to one side, which makes playing any one of them an extra pleasure. (The First and Fourth Symphonies, in particular, spill over on to a second side in most recordings.) Then there are the DMM pressings which only yield to CD on one point, for they have all the remarkable clarity of texture and silence of surface of the newer medium. The only point, of course, is that as LPs they won't last so long as a CD does. If you insist on CD by the way, Nos. 1 and 4 have already been issued in that form (at present only the Fourth is being imported by EMI—CDC169530-2, 11/85). Another point in favour of these LPs is that they are offered at a medium price.
All in all there is a case for recommending the complete box, especially as Wand's interpretations are mostly free of touches that may irritate the listener after several hearings. The one thing that may come as a surprise is the tempo for the very opening of the First Symphony which strikes one as so quick that Wand goes into the allegro with scarcely any change of pulse (which may well have been his intention). But one adjusts to it with extraordinary ease and if you don't mind having the four symphonies all in one conductor's interpretation, the advantages I have suggested above may make this a good bargain. Certainly they are never dull. On the contrary there is a welcome freshness of approach about every performance.'