Brahms symphonies Abbado/BPO

I’m sorry, I have not heard the Abbado set, so can’t really help, but for what it’s worth I am happy with Simon Rattle & the Berlin Phil on EMI.

Gramophone magazine recommend Nikolaus Harnoncourt again with the Berlin Phil.

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/node/99646

Brahms sets [of the symphonies] I have owned:

Weingartner

Bruno Walter

Boult [mono and stereo]

Abbado

Klemperer

Furtwangler

Sets I have today:

Klemperer

______

Abbado was the least good among the sets that I have disposed of.

ATB from George

I have quite a number of the Brahms symphony cycles. The most recent one of Riccardo Chailly - I like on high res, however I have not compared this version in one on one to the others...

The recent Chailly cycle is very well regarded and I really like it. Another cycle that is worth a listen is the Rattle version. Both of these are excellent recording quality with very good performances. Harnoncourt is well regarded too

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll pass on the Abbado cycle.

Best,

BBM

I have the Rattle and Abbado cycles. I find I listen to the Rattle version more often. The Abbado version also has some wow and flutter in the recording from the tape master.

Bruno Walter.

My good Forum-friend was today totally captivated by the fourth from Walter, which I pointed him towards, and I listened down the phone to the last minute!

ATB from George 

George,

Was the Walter recording the mono or stereo version? I have the stereo cycle, and am eagerly awaiting the mono set from Amazon UK.

BBM

Stereo, with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. This West Coast [of the USA] orchestra was constituted by the American Columbia [recording company] more or less for Walter in his evening of life - a  beautiful Indian Summer!

The Walter mono set was recorded with the NYPO as far as I remember in far inferior mono recordings a few years earlier. I might suppose that these mono performances captured more of the thrust that Walter obtained in Vienna [with the Philharmonic] and with the BBC SO in various HMV 78 recordings in the 1930s, but there is no denying the significance of the Walter-Columbia Symphony Orchestra set!

Klemperer is stronger and less immediately warm with the Philharmonia in 1956/7, and I find more rewarding after more than thirty years of knowing the music intimately. Klemeprer is stragely, given his reputation for slowness, significantly faster than Walter or indeed most performances of the music and clearer in the inner parts than any except the unsympathetic Weingartner on HMV from 1939 to 1941. But he does take all repeats, and certainly underlines the massive and epic qualities of the music ...

ATB from George

Thanks for that, George.

BBM

I am not imagining  the NYPO/Walter [American Columbia] set. I knew it in the 1980s on LPs, and thought the recordings [as transferred] did not remotely present the music making well. A new transfer might be very much better, so I will not write off these older CBS recordings ...

ATB from George

Dear George

Having lived with Klemperer´s Brahms recordings for more than forty years, I had become a bit tired of his super-epic monumental style, and then you introduced me to the more classical style of Boult and the more lyrical style of Walter, and am very grateful, because this saved my relationship with Brahms, and I was again able to enjoy Klemperers versions. So I would never part with either Boult nor Walther.

PS: Why do you call Weingartner unsympathehic? Do you think of his interpretations or his person?

Best wishes

Poul

Dear Poul,

My first difficulty arrived with the Finale of the Second symphony, which is usually a glorious movement. Weingartner crushes it into a fast moving express-train of a performance. I then began to find that he more or less did this driving through the big moments in all the Symphonies, and I eventually tired of it. The initial impression is of a bracing and fresh approach, but after a while it all seemed to be pushed on in a way that was more about Weingartner than Brahms. I know this is all just opinion, but I found Boult and Walter exactly the opposite to Weingartner [and Klemperer completely different], so I decided to give the Weingartner recordings away to a charity shop, as they are valuable and highly prized by collectors I understand.

As it goes I gave the Boult set to a good friend to start him off on Brahms, and the Walter set another to start him off! I do get people listening to Brahms quite well!

ATB from George

Does anyone have experience with the Sanderling cycle with the Berlin Sinfonie Orchestra? It seems to get good reviews, although I understand that the tempi are somewhat slow in some movements. Thanks in advance.

BBM