Brahms Op. 102

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.

Violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis are joined by two acclaimed musical forces - pianist Jeremy Denk and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, of which Bell is Music Director – in a landmark joint recording, For the Love of Brahms (Sony Classical). Available September 30, 2016, the new album is a unique project that features works of Brahms and Schumann that Bell calls “music about love and friendship.” Bell, Isserlis and Denk unite here in Brahms’s first published chamber work, the Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8 in its rarely performed original 1854 version. Isserlis also joins Bell – as violin soloist and director – and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Brahms’s last orchestral work, the celebrated Double Concerto (for Violin and Cello) in A Minor, Op. 102. Bell, Isserlis and members of the Academy also offer the first recording of an unusual coupling: the slow movement of Schumann’s rarely heard Violin Concerto, in a version for string orchestra made by Benjamin Britten, who also added a short coda.

I"m much more a fan of Mutter/Karajan Brahms violin concerto than the double concerto that is paired here. I have other Brahms Double Concerto recordings I prefer. But, this Karajan GOLD Brahms Violin Concerto is definitely a sonic upgrade from a standard DG (non-gold) issue when the Violin Concerto was all that was put on the disc. I'm hearing more spatial relationships, more tonal accuracy, more upper end and balance.

Bernard Haitink conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Brahms's great orchestral works, including the complete symphonies. The concertos feature three great soloists: pianist Claudio Arrau, violinist Henryk Szeryng, and cellist János Starker.

MONO • HISTORICAL RECORDINGS FROM 1942-1952. Wilhelm Furtwängler saw “a wild, fantastic and even demonic universe” in the symphonies of Brahms. “Music is not something that is invented and constructed,” he wrote, “but something that grows, emerging … directly from the hands of nature.” With organic development so crucial to Brahms’ music, his symphonies were destined for a prominent place in Furtwängler’s repertoire. Among the other works in this collection are the Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin, and the Piano Concerto No. 2 with Edwin Fischer, both recognised as landmark interpretations.