JOHANNES BRAHMS (1872-1958)

 

Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68

Symphony No.2 in D Major, Op.73

Symphony No.3 in F Major, Op.90

Symphony No.4 in E minor, Op.98

Academic Festival Overture, Op.80

Tragic Overture, Op.81

Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op.56a

 

Chicago Symphony Orchestra/ Daniel Barenboim 

 

This 4-CD set brings together performances of the Brahms symphonies cycle augmented by the composer’s rousing Academic Festival Overture, his moving Tragic Overture, composed at the same time as the Academic Festival Overture, and the earlier Variations on a Theme of Haydn, his first ambitious work for symphony orchestra, composed in 1873, three years before the first symphony.

 

In Musical Masterworks, author David Ewen writes, “Brahms in his four symphonies erected architectural designs impressive for their majesty. But, together with logical structure, there are rich poetic ideas, impassioned speech, sensuous beauty, and dramatic force. It is these traits in his symphonies that mark Brahms as the true inheritor of Beethoven’s symphonic crown.”

 

Although Brahms was encouraged by his early friends and admirers to write a symphony, he held back for many years. “You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” He referred, of course, to the shadow cast by Beethoven. Brahms’s biographer believed that his first symphony began to take shape in 1855, 28 years after Beethoven’s death. It was completed in 1876. The second symphony followed in 1877, the third in 1883, and the fourth in 1885.

 

Brahms’s fourth symphony was performed at the last orchestral concert that he heard, in Vienna, less than a month before he died. After each movement, there was enthusiastic applause until the composer came to the front of the box in which he was sitting. At the conclusion of the work, the audience would not let him go. Tears ran down his cheeks. The audience knew Brahms was unwell and that this was likely to be his farewell. It was.

 

Daniel Barenboim’s love affair with the Chicago Symphony began in 1958, when he first heard the Orchestra perform under Fritz Reiner. He described the experience as “an artistic revelation.” Since that time, Barenboim’s relationship with the CSO intensified through frequent guest conducting appearances, culminating in his music directorship in 1991. Together conductor and Orchestra have explored a vast range of repertoire from music of the Baroque era to new commissions on which the ink has barely dried. 

Warner Classics 4cds 2564618922