London Symphony Orchestra Beethoven

Join us in celebrating 25 years of our record label with 25 classical masterpieces from our catalogue.

These London Symphony Orchestra recordings were made at the Barbican in London in 2003 and 2004. The set includes not only the four Brahms symphonies but also the Tragic Overture, Op. 81, the Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102, and the Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16. It adds up to more than four hours of music, but one can make a strong case for this as the Brahms set to own for those who want just one, especially for those who aren't concerned with audio quality. There is much to sink one's teeth into here – over a lifetime.

The London Symphony Orchestra's cycle of Brahms symphonies was Bernard Haitink's first set of recordings on the LSO Live label, originally released individually throughout 2004-05, and then as a boxed set in 2005. This collection of remastered recordings is now available on SACD, and digitally in spatial audio. Bernard Haitink's revelatory Brahms recordings with the LSO have demonstrated why fresh new interpretations of his major works are so important, and why the composer's music is still so relevant today. After struggling for years to come to terms with his fear of comparison to Beethoven, Brahms finally completed his First Symphony at the age of 43. It was hailed as a triumph and the remaining three symphonies followed relatively easily. His Symphony No.2 overflows with a relaxed, pastoral beauty, while the Third Symphony contains some of the most dramatic music Brahms was to compose. Finally, loaded with German Romanticism and including variations on a Bach cantata, Brahms' final symphony is a remarkable example of his mastery of symphonic composition. A rich, warm work that builds on a sense of movement and intensity right up to the final bars. Along with the symphonies, this release also includes Brahms' Double Concerto, Tragic Overture and Serenade No.2.

Cellist Yang Sung-won released his ninth album "Echo of Romance" produced by classical label DECCA on the 29th May. According to Universal Music, the album includes the Schumann Cello Concerto, Clara Schumann's three romances Op.22 and Brahms' clarinet trio in a minor Op.114th place was included. A Universal Music official said, "These are works that allow you to read the intense artistic collaboration between Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Brahms."

Mendelssohn's reputation is solid as a "happy" Romantic; if (as some have claimed) he lacks passion, he makes up for it with exquisite sensibility and controlled emotion. These qualities are featured in Claudio Abbado's take on these seven overtures. …Fair Melusina Overture, inspired by a Kreutzer opera in which a husband learns his wife must turn into a mermaid once a week, and condemns her to her mermaid state forever. Gendered passages (sweet and then stern) compete with each other in a piece which gives oboes a workout. Melusina is a solid entree; the other six are desserts.

When Gustav Mahler began his First Symphony in 1884, ‘modern music’ meant Wagner, while the standard by which new symphonies were judged was that of Brahms, the arch ‘classical-romantic’. In a Brahmsian symphony there was little room for Wagnerian lush harmonies, or sensational new orchestral colours. In fact the orchestral forces Brahms employed were basically the same as those used by Beethoven and Schubert in their symphonies, three-quarters of a century earlier.

There are many excellent recordings of Mozart's later piano concertos – Perahia, Brendel, Uchida, Casadesus among others – but I want to put a word in for Stephen Kovacevich's accounts with Colin Davis, originally recorded for Philips in the 1970's. He recorded Concertos numbered 20, 21, 23, and 25, and for a while the two discs comprising these performances were available on Philips's Concert Classics budget label, which seems to have been discontinued, but you might be able to pick them up second hand. There's nothing flashy or meretricious about the performances – Davis accompanies with what sounds like a slightly scaled-down London Symphony (he was recording the major Mozart operas in those years) and the outer movements are springy and lithe, and the slow movements played with great feeling, but well within the bounds of classical style.