Brahms - Symphony no.3, Serenade no.2 | Channel Classics CCSSA43821

Brahms - Symphony no.3, Serenade no.2

£17.05

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Label: Channel Classics

Cat No: CCSSA43821

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 11th June 2021

Contents

Artists

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Conductor

Ivan Fischer

Works

Brahms, Johannes

Serenade no.2 in A major, op.16
Symphony no.3 in F major, op.90

Artists

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Conductor

Ivan Fischer

About

Brahms dedicated himself to music that was pure and abstract, which ‘portrayed’ nothing: no stories, no travel epics, no visual impressions. But nonetheless the Third does possess a personal undercurrent. The main thread of all four movements is the little motief F-A-F. With these three notes Brahms, the eternal bachelor, expressed his personal motto ‘Frei aber froh!’ - free but happy! It was a reaction to the musical signature F-A-E (‘Frei aber einsam’ – free but lonely) of his good friend the violinist Joseph Joachim. And despite all his aversion to the new rage of the symphonic poem, he delighted in the letter from Clara Schumann after she heard the symphony: ‘The opening movement depicts a delicious dawn ... the second movement an idyll, prayer in a small chapel in the woods, the flow of a brook, the rummaging of little beetles...’.

This Third Symphony completes Iván Fischer’s Brahms Symphonies Cycle on Channel Classics.

A minor miracle! The recording commenced one day prior to Hungary closing its borders on 1 September 2020. Engineer/Producer Jared Sacks had just arrived from The Netherlands. Despite the lockdown, the venue remained accessible, and the recording could be completed.

Reviews

This is ... a Third to savour and repeat, in touch with its fleeting, dusky nature like few others. Passages of the inner movements – and the central Andante of the Serenade, hauntingly done with its own distinctly Schumannesque qualities subtly underlined – take on the character of a veiled clarinet concerto, yet the orchestra bends and yields to the music’s expressive pulse...  Peter Quantrill
Gramophone August 2021
Gramophone Editor's Choice

Error on this page? Let us know here

Need more information on this product? Click here