The six choral items on this disc take us to the very heart of the enigma that is Brahms. It was not for nothing that Malcolm MacDonald began his superb and now shamefully out-of-print Master Musicians Brahms with a two-page preface on the Op 113 canon for female voices, Einförmig ist der Liebe Gram. Ingeniously laid out as a four-part canon in the sopranos accompanied by a two-part canon in the altos, it uses as its theme the emotionally drained melody of the hurdy-gurdy man's song at the end of Schubert's Winterreise. Gardiner takes the canon fairly swiftly - a high-wire act of a cappella singing that intensifies the mood while focusing the craft. Taking up more than half the disc, the choral items are its obvious glory, though as on previous discs Gardiner sets his face against anything that could be construed as false consolation. In his element in Song of the Fates, he gives the sublime Nänie an unusually taut, sharp-edged feel. Song of the Fates prefaces the Third Symphony, Nänie acts as its epilogue. It is superb planning. The symphony, however, receives a performance that will divide opinion - so extreme yet so finely realised is Gardiner's interpretative take on the work. The outer movements are taken more rapidly than on any of the 70 or more versions I have heard on record. A brisk tempo and forward winds can work wonders in this work, as Klemperer proved to glorious effect. With an expert period ensemble at his command, Gardiner takes this approach to an extreme. Memorably as the inner movements are shaped, the overdriven finale left me shaken but unmoved. Until, that is, Nänie broke in with its redeeming touch.