MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
CD 1 [75:48]
Symphony No. 1 (1868) [41:46]
Symphony No. 3 (1883) [34:02]
CD 2 [76:30]
Symphony No. 2 (1869) [37:18]
Symphony No. 4 (1885) [39:12]
London Symphony Orchestra/Antal Doráti
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Antal Doráti (No.2)
rec. Watford Town Hall, June 1959 (1); July 1963 (3, 4); Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis, Dec 1957. ADD
NEWTON CLASSICS 8802079 [75:48 + 76:30]

Experience Classicsonline


 
Here is Brahms in late 1950s analogue stereo sound courtesy of Wilma Cozart and Harold Lawrence. It has bark and bite both as sound and in performance style. Doráti delivers whiplash, lunge, parry and recoil. This is exciting Brahms and no mistake. It’s not without affection but Doráti clearly favours red-hot adrenaline over autumnal leaf-fall. Listen to the rafter-shaking almost Tchaikovskian burst he puts on in the last four minutes of the First Symphony and in the last two movements of the Fourth. Doráti ’s brand of predatory concentration is well to the fore.
 
The Third is my particular favourite since ‘learning’ the work from the Bruno Walter Columbia reading. Doráti keeps the music-making on a high flame and that shark-attack hammer-blow can be appreciated especially in the finale. The Second Symphony is not without dramatic episodes but the overarching peace is picked up by Doráti in a reading that is slower by a couple of minutes than Sawallisch’s EMI Classics recording with the LPO. For the Fourth Symphony we are back to the gripping and driven impatience of symphonies 1 and 3. The orchestra has a thunderous and shuddering bass and its very powerfully caught by the microphones. Stand back from the blast furnace door!
 
I remain very deeply impressed with the ‘philosopher’s stone’ of Giulini’s VPO Brahms also from Newton. Doráti by contrast delivers virtuoso and sometimes angrily impatient Brahms with the turbocharger fully engaged. It’s like the difference between 1970s Boult Elgar and 1970s Solti Elgar. Brahms cycles from Loughran and Haitink also stand at the other pole from Doráti . With the analogue era audio comes a degree of background hiss – a small price to pay for such exciting music-making. The notes are by Anthony Burton though nothing about Doráti .
 
Impatient and intemperate Brahms – invincible and heart-singing when you are in the right mood. A great palate freshener when you have had your fill of the musing and the contemplative.
 

Rob Barnett
 



 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.


 

> Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.