Release Date: 01 October 2005
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313242924
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BRAHMS
Description
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Symphony No. 2 in D major Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 3, 10 (orch. Brahms) & 17-21 (orch. Dvorak)Having successfully completed his First Symphony after a fifteen-year struggle, Brahms began composing his Second almost immediately, working on it in the summer of 1877 at Portschach-am-Worthersee and finishing the score that October at Baden-Lichtenthal. Brahms's friend, the scholar Philipp Spitta noted that 'the first two symphonies form a contrasted imaginative pair entirely characteristic of the composer, and they must be regarded as stemming from a single deeplyhidden root'. The Second Symphony opens with a fournote figure in the cellos and basses which, in various guises, acts as starting-point for other themes in the work, and this 'pre-thematic' motto has its immediate origins in the main theme of the finale of the First Symphony. Furthermore, the lyricism and joy of the Second (Brahms called it 'the happy Symphony') surely complements the dramatic journey from darkness to light of its predecessor. Brahms invoked a sense of place for the work, writing to his friend the critic Eduard Hanslick: 'you will say: this is not a serious work of art, Brahms has been sly, the Worthersee is virgin territory, with melodies flying around all over, such that one has to be careful not to tread on any.' Later Brahms teased friends who had not yet heard the symphony by characterizing it as particularly mournful, writing, for instance, to his publisher Fritz Simrock: 'The new Symphony is so melancholic that you will not be able to bear it. I have not yet written anything quite so sad, so 'minor': the score must appear with black borders and in mourning.' Brahms was clearly delighted with his new work, yet, as he revealed in a letter to his friend Vincenz Lachner, he regarded it as having a dark side also: 'I had very much wanted and attempted to get through the first movement without trombones. [...] But their first entry, that belongs to me and thus I cannot do without it and also the trombones. If you wanted me to defend that passage I would have to go further. Then I would have to acknowledge that I am in addition a deeply melancholic person, that the black wings flutter continually over us, that - perhaps not completely accidentally in my oeuvre this Symphony is followed by a small discourse on the great question 'Why' [the Motet: Warum ist das Licht gegeben dem Muhseligen?, Op. 74, No. 1]. If you do not know it (the motet) I will send it you. It throws the necessary deep shadow onto the happy Symphony and perhaps explains those kettledrums and trombones.' Brahms's characteristic integration of variation procedures into sonata form takes on new fluidity in this work, creating expressively rich diversifications of the prevailing idyllic mood. Thus in the first movement the gentle pastoral opening leads to the melancholy low brass chords, followed by a sinuous leg
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yang/Schwabe/Dt So/Wit
Wolf Harden
Wolf Harden
