This new release from Ondine is the first installment in a series of Brahms recordings with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Jaime Martin. Together with the orchestra, Martin offers delightful interpretations of these two early examples of Brahms' orchestral writing. Jaime Martin became the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Gävle Symphony Orchestra in 2013. During recent years orchestral engagements have led the rising conductor to collaborate with several prominent orchestras around the world. Martin is also Chief Conductor of the Orquestra de Cadaques and known for his active career as a solo flautist. The two Brahms' orchestral Serenades heard here were written in the late 1850's and together with the first Piano Concerto, offer the earliest surviving examples of his orchestral writing.

REVIEW:

Anyone who champions Brahms’s gloriously eccentric, lyrical, and capacious Serenades deserves full attention. Here they get it. There’s some lovely playing, with warm woodwind and horns and nice, crisp syncopations. Martín does not allow the tempi to drag: important in works that need to be kept agile and alert to reveal their special charm.

– Guardian