Search - Johannes Brahms, Maurice de Abravanel, Utah Symphony Orchestra :: Brahms: The 4 Symphonies

Abravanel, Utah, Brahms: Nourishment in Sound

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 04/17/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While the Utah Symphony under conductor Maurice Abravanel made quite a few very good recordings, they never got the virtuoso reputation earned among the likes of Cleveland, Boston, or Philadephia. No matter. If you get this Brahms Symphonies set, you will be perfectly happy to discover how much good music was being made outside of big cities on the East coast USA. As Utah grew and matured, the orchestral departments came into wholesome musical balance, thus moving the orchestra from just being regional, to being more than that. If the bane of a struggling regional band is under-weight string sound, Utah finally surpassed this limitation; not to mention the surprising sophistication of some wind and brass playing. In this set, Utah and Abravanel show enough genius to teach us, again, that music is more than just polished sound. It is also heart, it is also soul.In all four symphonies, the music making is wholesome, solid, and expert without being flashy or needing recourse to eccentricities. Abravanel consistently adopts the most musical and sensible tempos, not always an easy path to find through the Brahmsian woods and meadows. A classic poise infects all. You are reminded how Brahms himself straddled various polemical and technical divides in the musical culture of his era. He was at once conservative (as the spiteful Hanslick truly argued), and pioneering (as the notorious Schoenberg argued).Now the Utah Symphony is not Philadelphia. So in the first symphony you will get a full serving of Brahmsian strength, but presented in a leaner, rather than a fatter, sounding orchestra. This may actually be to the better for Brahms. Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra have brilliantly demonstrated how a leaner orchestral balance does much to disprove all the old criticisms that Brahms always orchestrated in a thick, muddy texture. Though larger-sounding than the Mackerras set, Abravanel and Utah lean more in that revisionist direction. Horn and woodwind solos are excellently played, and just ask any musician, if you are doing these solo bits, you feel very exposed for the moment.The lyric felicities of the second symphony are a given, but the leaner and classical approach being taken yields dividends in that the second is revealed to have brains and muscle and heart, as well as pastoral geniality. On to the third symphony, you can hear just how complexly and deeply Brahms is mining western classical traditions, while putting old manners to new uses. Again, with the woodwind/brass chording that opens the third, the leaner orchestral balance heightens the opening motive that will reappear throughout.The fourth symphony is difficult to get right. Tempo in the last movement's passacaglia can be tricky. Abravanel and Utah solve all the musical difficulties, never forgetting that the ends and means are musical ones.Silverline Classics is remastering these gems in 24-bit, high resolution sound. Their DVD releases will eventually include the Brahms, as well as the Sibelius, ... maybe even the Mahler ... symphonies that were recorded. So far, these DVD versions are the top of the pick. Play the CD versions if you only have CD. Seek out the DVD versions if you have either movie DVD or DVD audio capabilities. The increase in sound via 24-bits of multichannel audio will only serve to recreate the sheer musical genius of these heartfelt and committed performances, all that much more.Five stars, indeed. But look for the DVD audio/DVD versions if at all possible."