Brahms: Symphony No 2 in D Major / Alto Rhapsody

"What Sir John offers us in this second installment of his ongoing series of the Brahms symphonies is something different. He is searching for the subtleties that reveal the composer's true intentions. When played on period instruments that feature thick gut strings, four natural horns, rotary-valve trumpets, leather-headed kettle drums and those gloriously reedy 19th Century woodwinds, one hears an entirely different Brahms. The textures are lighter but the sonority is slightly darker. This creates such a powerful sense of emotional ambiguity that one responds as if witnessing a newly cleaned Renaissance painting. There were several moments when I experienced chills as I suddenly "got it." The sense that this was what the composer probably intended, a particular effect or certain shading in the orchestration is palpable throughout this recording of a live performance."
(Five Stars AudAud.com)

"In the Second Symphony the period strings' lighter articulation gives Brahms's rhythms a sprightlier feel than in many modern sessions. …in Gesand der Geister Gardiner avoids any awkward episodic feeling by making the music tell the story of Goethe's poem fluently and with character." BBC Music Magazine, April 2009 ****

"Gardiner quotes Walter Frisch's report that Brahms "disliked metronomic rigidity and lack of inflection on the one hand, fussy over- determined expressivity on the other". In the first movement, he and his period instrumentalists strike exactly that balance. This is characterful music-making, complex and subtle." Gramophone Magazine, May 2009

"Orchestre Romantique et Révolutionnaire's sound is vivid and clear. Nathalie Stutzmann's "Alto Rhapsody" is tenderly shaped, depthless, elegant…this is an arresting and impressive performance." The Independent on Sunday

Following on from the phenomenal worldwide success of the first release in the Brahms series, SDG continues the series with Brahms' Symphony 2 which sees John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms and of those composers that influenced him.