Brahms: Symphonies (masur)

2 DVD - Label: Kultur - D4168 - Symphonies Nos.1-4 - Brahms, Johannes - Conductor: Kurt Masur - Orchestra: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is conducted by Kurt Masur in their first-ever recording of all four Brahms symphonies, from the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in 1991. Kurt Masur also gives an in-depth interview prior to each symphony, both thought-provoking and stimulating, in which he talks about his family background and his long association with this world-famous orchestra, having studied, like many members of the orchestra, at the Leipzig Conservatoire. He also discusses Brahms four symphonies, which he sees as a single great inspiration, with each symphony like a separate movement, together amounting to the symphony of Brahms life. It is fascinating to hear them performed as a cycle with a consistent approach and by a conductor and an orchestra with such a distinguished and distinctive tradition. If you believe, as Kurt Masur does, that the four symphonies are related, that one leads to the other and together they form a single grand symphonic sweep, then it can make you hear them in a totally different way. "Last night ... the reason this music was at last reaching me not teaching me anything I didn't already know about it finally came home. And that reason was the sheer honesty and integrity of the interpretation and performance. I tell you this: it did it for me." THE HERALD, GLASGOW

Price: $39.98