Complete Choral Works : Giulini / Vienna Philharmonic, Sinopoli / Czech Philharmonic, Prague Philharmonic Choir, G.Jena / NDR Choir (7CD)

Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833, the son of a dance musician. He soon came to attention as a gifted pianist and had only just turned twenty when in 1853 the composer and writer on music Robert Schumann, no less, hailed him as the central figure in German Romanticism, recognizing in the young fellow at whose cradle graces and heroes stood watch a musician who was destined for greatness and who had already discovered new paths in the history of music, paths that he would continue to explore and develop. This was effectively a patent of nobility for the young Brahms. Thanks to the commitment that the Hamburg North German Radio Chorus has regularly shown for the city's great son, the present set of Brahms's choral music also includes all the rarities of the composer's earlier period. They reveal the whole vast range of his very personal veneration of the Virgin Mary and extend from works written for women's and men's choral societies to those that reflect his delight in canonic procedures and, finally, lively pieces composed for social occasions. - Selke Harten-Strehk.