Comp.symphonies: Mackerras / Scottish Co

This disc was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Awards for "Best Classical Album," "Best Engineered Album, Classical," and "Best Orchestral Performance."
This is not your father's Brahms, though it may be your great-grandfather's. The concept behind this cycle-with-a-difference is to emulate the kind of orchestra Brahms liked to use, specifically the Meiningen Court Orchestra, with which he worked extensively after 1880 and entrusted with several important premieres. Though the trend in his lifetime was toward gigantic ensembles, Brahms preferred this town orchestra of about fifty players with its much smaller string section because it allowed greater prominence for his brass and woodwind voices.
Sir Charles Mackerras here employs sixty members of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, playing modern strings but period brass instruments which are raspier than their modern counterparts. The textures are revelatory: though the strings are by no means feeble one immediately notices the profile of the horns in lines which may have gone unnoticed before. The performances are correspondingly agile, with fast tempi and Mackerras, taking a cue from performance notes by Brahms' contemporaries, conducting in a style far more volatile than is his usual wont. This is a provocative and often exciting set, recorded in a suitable small hall ambience.
REVIEWS:
American Record Guide (11-12/97, pp.107-08) - "...The Scottish orchestra plays very well, the tempos are well chosen, definitely not too fast, and Mackerras' climaxes are carefully planned and skillfully managed. They are not only lessons in history and musicology but valid and enjoyable listening experiences--a rare juxtaposition..."