If you can be disconcerted, I suppose it should be possible, linguistically speaking (and how else?), to be concerted. Brahms, in this sense, and taken in large doses such as are offered on these two records, is really just about the most concerted composer I know. The withering of the grass that is flesh, the "Menschenhass", the indifference of the gods to human life though it meets with disasters "like water dashed from crag to crag": in short, the worst that the Bible and the classics of his own language can throw at him, he surveys without flinching and transmutes into the goodness of finely structured, beautifully orchestrated music, eminently human yet capable of sublimity, never merely complacent but also (as it seems to me) very rarely disconcerted.

Sir Colin Davis's way with him strengthens such reactions. In the Schicksalslied his is the most serene account of Elysium and of the compatibility of Elysian security and earthly turbulence. Conductors as different from each other as Blomstedt (Decca) and Sinopoli (DG) are alike in their apparent conviction that what has to be done with this piece is to split it asunder, expose the chasm between its two worlds. Blomstedt's approach is probably philosophical, Sinopoli's dramatic, but they both go for the black and the white of it: Blomstedt takes 'Elysium' slowly and 'Earth' brutally fast and loud. Sinopoli moves in more doubtful fashion in the empyrean but then with demonic drive in the depiction of harried humanity. Davis forces nothing: he encourages neither lethargy nor wildness. Musically, his performance makes perfectly good sense of the return to calm, and all the argument about whether it constitutes an intentionally acquiescent 'happy ending' seems rather wide of the mark: musically the piece is a unity, and Davis's reading, like Brahms's composition, is thoroughly 'concerted'.

The soloist for the Alto Rhapsody is Nathalie Stutzmann, not entirely steady in her opening phrases but then deep-toned, and unusual in lightening the upper note in "der Falk der Liebe". [These performances] are gentle, both as recordings and interpretations. A bonus is the inclusion of the attractive and rarely heard Marienlieder of 1859: seven carol-like a cappella pieces, showing, among other things, the fine blend and sensitive shading of the Bavarian choir.

-- Gramophone [5/1993]

The New Orford Quartet approach these chamber monuments with justifiable reverance while providing ample space for them to sing, brood, and dance. Led with penetrating vibrancy by violinist Jonathan Crow, the performance of Op. 51/1 combines tonal beauty with seamless interaction. In the Op. 51/2, they are keenly alert to the contrapuntal conversations as they are to the matters of timbral warmth and focus.

– Gramophone

Even toward the end of her career Christa Ludwig was in lustrous voice and sang with an innate understanding of these songs.

Christa Ludwig was one of the leading operatic and recital singers of the post war generation... The disc devoted to lieder makes for very rewarding listening. The groups by Strauss and Mahler strike me as being particularly fine. Even towards the end of her long career Ludwig was able to call upon the resources of tone which these songs so often demand. This is not to imply that the offerings of Schumann or Brahms are in any way inferior. In these, too, she is in lustrous voice and sings with an innate understanding of the idiom. The programme is artfully chosen not only to present composers with whose music Ludwig had a particular affinity but also, just as importantly, with regard to the inevitable limitations the years may have placed upon her vocal resources. Suffice to say there is little or nor hint that we are listening to a singer aged 65. ...[T]he whole lieder recital is taken from a disc entitled ‘Farewell to Salzburg’ and comprises the programme which she chose for her final recital in that city in August 1993. The recordings themselves were made in the previous January during performances in the Schloss Grafenegg in Haitzendorf, Austria... The discs will give much pleasure for they are full of high quality artistry and all admirers of this great singer will want to snap up these recordings.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International [reviewing the box set RCA 84597]

On the occasion of it's 40th anniversary Carus has initiated a new series Carus Classics, featuring ten outstanding CD productions from the past library of recordings. This exclusive collection, designed by Friedrich Forssman and Cornelia Feyll, is presented in high-quality DigiPacs and each CD includes an extensive booklet. '... exemplary recording.' (New Classics, September 2005)

Recorded as part of Carus' prizewinning "Liederprojekt" series, a charity project produced by Carus and Southwest German Radio that contributes profits to childrens' music education in Europe, this 3 CD set is an extraordinary collection of lullabies from Europa, America, Asia, Africa and Australia with selections that are at once deeply familiar to those that will delight with discovery for both the young and young at heart. With an impressive breadth of performers including Peter Schreier, Calmus Ensemble, Christian Gerhaher, Jonas Kaufmann and much more; it could be said this is the ultimate collection of lullabies that would complete any music library.

At his best, Serkin's driving energy, fierce intelligence, and his unfailing lucidity of touch produced recordings that do that rare thing: they transcend the medium. This is one such.

Serkin is said to have disliked recording and his legacy is mixed, technically and artistically. Yet, at best, his driving energy, his fierce intelligence, his quick mind, and (until comparatively recently) his unfailing lucidity of touch often produced recordings that do that rare thing: they transcend the medium.

One such recording is his 1968 Cleveland account of Brahms's D minor Piano Concerto which Sony have recently reissued...coupled with another Serkin speciality, Richard Strauss's Burleske for piano and orchestra. Serkin "at the peak of his form, emotionally, intellectually, and technically" is how Trevor Harvey described the performance in these columns in May 1969 and I wouldn't disagree with that. From the piano's first entry it is evident that we are in the presence of a musical plain-dealer who is something more besides. The touch is plain but never monochrome, resolute but never harsh. There are miracles of dynamic shading yet dynamic changes that are elementally swift and steep. Above all, there is a revelatory way with rhythm, full of potency and drive in quicker music, and turning the more reflective passages into slow sustained acts of transcendental enquiry. As a reading this has something of Arrau's weight and profundity (Philips D 420 702-2PSL, 11/87) matched to Curzon's lyricism and sense of forward drive (Decca D 417 641-2DH, 10/87, also conducted by Szell). It is not better than either but it has some of the best qualities of both. There are those, it must be said, who are distracted by Serkin's stamping pedalwork and by breathing that has Serkin, like Arrau, cross-hatching the lie of a phrase with his own peculiar form of musical emphysema. Such things don't worry me unduly. You can't expect a man to go up the north face of the Eiger, silently, in carpet-slippers; and, in the slow movement, I find the counterpointing of Serkin's stressful breathing, with the sublimely conjured and spun melody that floats from it, to be a moving re-enactment of the composer's own recalcitrance in the face of the brute marble out of which this concerto is sculpted.

Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra are, needless to say, superb accompanists, and the sound is excellent in an appropriately forthright way, with pianissimos that are not so much pianissimo as properly hushed and innig. I don't agree with the reviewer who found Serkin's account of the Strauss Burleske to be lacking in poetry. Rather, it glints; it is sharp and witty. Above all, the performance redeems the work from its principal failing: the sense it can give of being marginally but fatally over length... [I]f you want a truly worthy memorial of this great pianist from the current batch, there is absolutely no doubt that the Brahms/Strauss disc is the one to have.

-- Gramophone [7/1991]

This set presents the complete cycle of Brahms’ symphonies, as performed by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Mariss Jansons. It puts the finishing touch on the complete performance of Johannes Brahms’ symphonic works, compositions oriented around the creativity of his great role model, yet in many ways also forward-looking and innovative.

The beauty of Brahmsian symphonic creativity comes to full fruition in these live recordings from the Musikverein in Vienna and the Herkulessaal in Munich under the direction of Mariss Jansons.