Name: Johannes Brahms Cycle
Release year: 2015
Genre: Classical
Directed by: William Cosel, Jonathan Haswell, Brian Large
Conductor: Franz Welser-Möst
Cast: Yefim Bronfman (piano), Julia Fischer (violin), The Cleveland Orchestra

Description:

The Cleveland Orchestra is the "aristocrat of the American orchestras" (The Telegraph) and its conductor, Franz Welser-Möst, rules his subjects with a velvet glove. Indeed, velvet and silk keep up in the descriptions of the Clevelanders.

The First Symphony is Welser-Möst's chance to let Brahms "" mellow, silky sound "(The Guardian) unfurl about the stage of the British BBC Promenade Concerts. In the "frenetically applauded" (Die Presse) in the rendition that polish every detail to make the Brahms' Second Symphony glow from within. In the evolution of Brahms' symphonic oeuvre, his penultimate Third Symphony. Die Presse applauded the concert in which Franz Welser-Möst performed the Symphony as "structurally highlighted, vividly sketched details modelled with great subtlety". Welser-Möst offers a "lean, propulsive performance" (The Plains Dealer) of the Fourth Symphony. The swift pace in his hands reflects the conductor's quest for a distinctive, far-from-mainstream interpretation.

Brahms' rousing Academic Festival Overture and Violin Concerto op. 77 bear witness to a composer at the height of his abilities, a mature master of large-scale masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands extreme technical proficiency. As if to exemplify this, violinist Julia Fischer gears herself from the very start of this emotionally searing work to maintain a restrained yet passionate tone.

Yefim Bronfman has the uncanny ability to play large without stridency, to handle the most delicate passages without losing presence, and to play everything in between with a ravishing sense of tonal color. In the Second Piano Concerto Welser-Möst and Bronfman brought pulsing energy to the concerto's second movement, setting up an oasis of calm for the third time, segued immediately into the genial finale. Laced into his forceful performance of Piano Concerto No. 1 was a surprising element of fury, as if the pianist had become unhinged momentarily: and yet Bronfman was also wholly present, taking time in relaxed passages to savour every second.

• Disc # 1
  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
- Academic Festival Overture in C minor, Op. 80
- Concerto for Violin in D major, Op. 77
- Symphony no 4 in E minor, Op. 98

• Disc # 2
  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
- Symphony no. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
- Symphony no. 2 in D major, Op. 73
- Symphony no 3 in F major, Op. 90

• Disc # 3
  Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
- Variations in B flat major on a theme by Haydn, Op. 56a "St. Anthony"
- Concerto for Piano no 1 in D minor, Op. 15
- Tragic Overture, Op. 81
- Concerto for Piano no 2 in B flat major, Op. 83

Issued: United Kingdom | Clasart Classic / Belvedere
Duration: ~ 06: 30: 00