Word: brahmses
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With Philips marketing the sets in the middle price range for compact discs, the savvy buyer can pick up the Brahms cycle for less than $35 dollars in the coupon-saturated Square. However, one might be disappointed to discover Philip's unorthodox packaging scheme--the discs are stored in TyvekTM...
One consistent gripe that I have throughout the recorded works (the four Brahms symphonies on three discs, and the two serenades on a fourth disc), it is some criticism for the sound engineering. Quite typically from Philips, the sound sparkles with digital clarity and is graced by a glossy sheen...
The first symphony seems to me a bit lacking in the quality for which early critics dubbed it "Beethoven's Tenth Symphony." For example, at the moment of maximum dramatic impact, the brass chorale before the final coda in the last movement, Haitink plows right on through, almost as if...
Haitink's recording of the second symphony begins a little cold-blooded for my taste, perhaps adhering to Brahms' wishes of putting "a black edge around the score to give an outward show of grief," but it quickly picks up more and more of the infectious charm that characterizes this...
Perhaps not too surprisingly, it is in the ancillary "filler" pieces where Haitink really shines with surprising passion - the Tragic and Academic Festive Overtures, the two serenades, the Variations on a Theme by Haydn, and the only three Hungarian dances that Brahms rescored for orchestra. The two overtures have plenty...