Brahms: The Symphonies album assessment – much less is extra for Nézet-Séguin and the COE

The realisation that the 4 Brahms symphonies don’t must be carried out by an orchestra of 70 or 80 gamers has taken some time to translate into efficiency observe. It was well-known that the composer himself favoured a band of round 50 – the premiere of his First Symphony in Karlsruhe was given by an orchestra of 49, and that for the Fourth, in Meiningen, had 48. But it surely’s solely in the previous few years that conductors – together with Robin Ticciati, Thomas Dausgaard and Adam Fischer on disc – have demonstrated that utilizing smaller forces needn’t in any method diminish the ability and effectiveness of the music. Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s cycle, taken from his concert events with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at Baden Baden within the summers of 2022 and 2023, is the most recent to comply with that development.

The positive aspects in readability and litheness from utilizing a smaller physique of strings are apparent from the very begin, from the way in which during which Nézet-Séguin launches the First Symphony; the opening bars appear much less glowering and portentous than they so typically might be, and all through the cycle his alternative of tempi, very often sooner than most conductors’, with out ever seeming unduly rushed or overexcitable, emphasises that athleticism too. If the First Symphony is probably the largest beneficiary of his strategy, there are positive aspects and revelations to be present in all 4 works; the wind writing within the gradual motion of the Second has a chamber music-like intimacy, the Allegretto of the Third a relaxed flexibility, the finale of the Fourth, an irresistible drive and depth. The authority and the standard of the performances are unmistakable.

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