Brahms: The Complete Symphonies / Karajan, Berlin PO | Johannes Brahms, Herbert von Karajan, ......

Brahms: The Complete Symphonies / Karajan, Berlin PO | Johannes Brahms, Herbert von Karajan, ... | Johannes Brahms por Herr Von Karajan.

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Brahms: The Comple...

	Brahms: The Complete Symphonies / Karajan, Berlin PO Johannes Brahms, Herbert von Karajan, ... Deutsche Grammophon, 1998 average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fantastic Karajan

Karajan's 1970's Brahms cycle is very awake, alive, and clear. No words in my meager mind can measure the slightest the pure sound of Karajan's copiously constructed treatment. The great, thick Bramsish passages are awesome and the soft, peaceful passages innately relaxing. The recording medium is nearly too thin to hear, and the performance so perfect that it also disappears, and one is left alone with Brahms to philosophize on the tremendous and delicate things of life. Listening to this music makes one feel like one is "listening to the best orchestra in the world playing the best music in the world conducted by the best conductor in the world." Indeed, this, as Karajan's many other productions, quintessentially becomes such pure and perfect sound. Karajan conducts as Brahms writes. Karajan's understanding is so deep and universal that multiple understandings can be constructed from his conducting. It is more intrinsic than specified, and pure than interpreted.

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Johannes Brahms por Herr Von Karajan.

Estimado amigo de la música, en estos momentos usted tiene en sus manos una de las mejores interpretaciones de las Sinfonías de Brahms (Junto con las de Arturo Toscanini/NBC y Otto Klemperer/Philarmonia), al ridículo precio de $us. 16, realmente es un regalo. Cuando yo compre este set de las Sinfonías en LP en 1.979, valían el triple!!! Es una compra que nunca se arrepentirá.

La concepción profunda del Maestro Karajan, más el extraordinario sonido de la Filarmónica de Berlín, nos dan unas interpretaciones que nos dejan totalmente satisfechos.

Compre YA!

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Karajan's Great Brahms Symphony Cycle

To his credit, Herbert von Karajan obtained a lush, warm sound from his Berlin Philharmonic that was almost as fine as the Vienna Philharmonic's. A sound which is absent in today's Berlin Philharmonic. No where is it heard better than on this two CD set from Deutsche Grammophon. However, I wouldn't rate it as one of the truly great Brahms symphony cycles. Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, and Kurt Sanderling have offered more inspired, more riveting accounts of Brahms' symphonies with orchestras in Amsterdam, Boston, New York and Dresden. Even Harnoncourt's recent Brahms symphony cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic sounds more dramatic - as well as innovative - than Karajan's. Karajan gives us technically perfect readings of this music that lack much of the drama associated with Brahms' scores. Perhaps his best account is of the 4th Symphony; only here does he give a riveting, dramatic interpretation of Brahms' last symphony. Unless you are a fan of Karajan's, I recommend skipping this set and acquiring any of the ones I mentioned above, with highest praise going to Haitink's, Masur's, and Sanderling's versions.

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Sterile Brahms

One gets the sense with these recordings that something is wrong. Now my tastes have always ran more towards the Weimar school (Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler) than the Liepzig school (Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms) when it comes to Romantic and post-romantic music. As a result, I trust my critical abilities less with a Brahms or Schumann performance than a Bruckner or Wagner performance. Nevertheless, upon first hearing, something was wrong with these performance. The hesitant timpani strike at the openning of the 1st symphony, the rush to get through the difficult opening movement of the 2nd symphony, and the liner notes that apologized for Karajan's approach( "one senses that Karajan is finally able to relax in the 2nd symphony" which I interpret as apology for the smooth and sterile 1st symphony) all suggest that something is amiss. Though the curmudgeon Brahms certainly lacked Schumann's Dionysian side, I can't get over the hunch that Brahms did not have in mind these slick and smooth performances that Karajan hands us. Not that these performances lack drama. The opening movement of the 3rd and the final movement of the 2nd certainly show drama. What they lack is the consuming intensity and fury that Brahms tempermentally shared with Beethoven. Perhaps what deprives the music is the nagging sense that every passage is played legato, or Karajan's tyrannical need to be in control, or even more, his fear of slipping into vulgarity. The liner notes go out of their way to assure us that Karajan's polished product is the farthest thing from vulgarity. Though Brahms performed garishly can be blush-inducing, one wishes nevertheless that Karajan would lighten his grip a bit let the more agitated elements and churning passages written into the score come to the forefront a little more.

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reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4

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