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Brahms: Symphony No. 4 - John Eliot Gardiner
Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op. 62
Gabrieli: Sanctus et Benedictus a 12
Schutz: Responsorium: Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich SWV 415
Brahms: Geistliches Lied, Op. 30
Brahms: Fest- und Gedenkspruche, Op. 109
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
The Monteverdi Choir & Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
Recorded live at Royal Festival Hall, London, 5-8 October 2008
The last instalment of the successful Brahms Symphony series which sees John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique explore the music of Johannes Brahms. This album is a celebration of the Fourth Symphony and the various pieces that contributed to its making.
From baroque to romantic, and from great orchestral pieces to intimate choral works, the listener gains a wonderful insight into Brahms’s mind and music making, through pieces that he loved and inspired him.
The Fourth Symphony was described by Richard Strauss as “a giant work, great in concept an invention, masterful in its form, and yet from A to Z genuine Brahms, in a word, an enrichment to our art”. Drawing from many sources of the musical past, it is nevertheless absolutely unique.
It is impregnated with baroque influence - the Finale was directly inspired by Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich. Brahms enjoyed conducting less known old repertoire such as Gabrieli’s Sanctus Benedictus and Schutz’s Saul, Saul. They influenced his choral writing as we can hear in the Geistliches Lied. Brahms was also famously inspired by Beethoven, and the Finale to the Fourth clearly owes to his Coriolan overture.
The recordings from this series are drawn from Gardiner’s two-year Brahms and his Antecedents project which not only celebrated Brahms the composer, but traced the roots from which Brahms drew his creative inspiration. No other composer of the 19th century had such a close and informed relationship to music of the past and for this reason, great choral works by composers as varied as Beethoven, Bach, Schutz and Gabrielli are performed alongside Brahms’ compositions.
The booklet includes a conversation between John Eliot Gardiner and composer Hugh Wood, explaining how the pieces relate to each other and giving a moving account of Brahms as a composer and as a man. ( SDG )
