Brahms Symphony No 3; St Antoni Variations
Alsop's symphony is fine but it's the Variations that give this disc distinction
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johannes Brahms
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 3/2007
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 557430
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 3 |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer London Philharmonic Orchestra Marin Alsop, Conductor |
Variations on a Theme by Haydn, 'St Antoni Chorale |
Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer London Philharmonic Orchestra Marin Alsop, Conductor |
Author: Richard Osborne
Brand-new budget-price recordings which can rub shoulders with the best are rarer than one imagines (Colin Davis's 1962 HMV Concert Classics recording of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was an early example) but this fine new Brahms disc probably comes into that category.
Finding a recommendable Brahms Third is more difficult than one might suppose. Since Felix Weingartner made his very fine LPO recording in 1938, the number of great, or even successful, Thirds can probably be listed on the fingers of two hands. (Three candidates for the right hand are listed above.) Marin Alsop's reading is certainly fine: dark of hue, lyrical and long drawn, though never, even for a moment, comatose. Rhythm is good, articulation keen, phrasing exquisite, the reading's crepuscular colours glowingly realised by the LPO. The reading has a quality of melancholy, a wistfulness crossed with a sense of incipient tragedy, which is almost Elgarian (Elgar's fascination with the piece is well attested).
Readings such as Furtwängler's and Sanderling's, which are more inclined to tower and course, may not have allowed themselves to be overtopped by the St Antoni Variations, yet there is something rather wonderful about the transition we have here from dark to light. It is a long time since I heard a performance of the Variations as well grounded and as keenly profiled as this. Winds are splendidly to the fore: skirling flutes, songful oboes, grumbling descants on the horns “in deep B”. It is, above all, a reading of great character: the horn-led sixth variation a burgherly jaunt, the seventh variation a handsome galliard, the finale a Meistersinger-like revel.
Finding a recommendable Brahms Third is more difficult than one might suppose. Since Felix Weingartner made his very fine LPO recording in 1938, the number of great, or even successful, Thirds can probably be listed on the fingers of two hands. (Three candidates for the right hand are listed above.) Marin Alsop's reading is certainly fine: dark of hue, lyrical and long drawn, though never, even for a moment, comatose. Rhythm is good, articulation keen, phrasing exquisite, the reading's crepuscular colours glowingly realised by the LPO. The reading has a quality of melancholy, a wistfulness crossed with a sense of incipient tragedy, which is almost Elgarian (Elgar's fascination with the piece is well attested).
Readings such as Furtwängler's and Sanderling's, which are more inclined to tower and course, may not have allowed themselves to be overtopped by the St Antoni Variations, yet there is something rather wonderful about the transition we have here from dark to light. It is a long time since I heard a performance of the Variations as well grounded and as keenly profiled as this. Winds are splendidly to the fore: skirling flutes, songful oboes, grumbling descants on the horns “in deep B”. It is, above all, a reading of great character: the horn-led sixth variation a burgherly jaunt, the seventh variation a handsome galliard, the finale a Meistersinger-like revel.
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