Brahms Symphony in A, Op.26?

[Alan Howe]

The Nimbus release is a CD-R. Oh joy! And I thought I was going to enjoy this - but after nearly 5 minutes I'm already bored. Think I'll leave it for another day...

[Mark Thomas]

Oh, you managed five minutes? I gave up after less than that. Those horns at the start, and then the leaden tempo - hardly Brahms. I'll try again over the weekend.

[Alan Howe]

I'm currently 5½ minutes in and enjoying it rather more! Mind you, I've copied it via my computer to another CD so that I can play it on my usual CD-player on which I can boost the volume. When you get ten minutes in, the piece works up a fair old head of steam, so I think there's value in persisting. It certainly has a strong Brahmsian feel overall, the beginning apart, I think.

[Mark Thomas]

That's encouraging, but it'll have to wait for a day or two now. Thanks, Alan...

[adriano]

Sorry, the CD of those Brahms arrangements is an Ondine, not a Hyperion CD (my mistake).
I just re-listened to Glanert's orchestration/adptation of the Four Serious Songs together with a friend of mine: He reacted immediately and found it "simply horrible and preposterous".
Now to my criticism: The orchestral prelude, postlude and linking intermezzi (original compositions by Glanert) are disturbing and too distracting. In my opinion it does not make a lot of sense to pick up a few themes from the songs to create such extra and more modern, much louder and intrusive music. Would Glanert eventually have placed his extras "commentaries" separately, leaving the songs 1:1 (even though his orchestration is not comparable to Sargent's, Leinsdorf's, Günther Raphael's, Ludwig Misch's, Karl-Micheal Komma's and De Vlieger's - the latter is my favourite), one could live with such an idea - or just jump the tracks. Glanert is a very prolific composer (14 operas, over 2 dozens of orchestral works, 3 symphonies...). During last week I called two German and an Austrian conductor friends, asking whether they knew him - they told me that it's one of those prolific and typical "music publishing house-promoted composers like Wolfgang Rihm, no matter what they produce".
A similar "special orchestration" example is Schubert's "Winterreise", called a "composed interpretation" for tenor and small orchestra by Hans Zender. This is a really great and visionary orchestrated view of this masterwork! Higly recommended.

[Alan Howe]

...wait till you get to the finale. Brahms rip-roaring? He is here!

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, once those initial couple of minutes are over it's Brahms all the way and really quite convincing. Such a shame about the opening .

[adriano]

Well, it's not only the opening! After each song, new music by Glanert comes up to introduce the following, or to end up the story :-(

[Mark Thomas]

I was referring to the new Kenneth Woods arrangement if the Piano Quartet No.2 , Adriano, not the Glanert.

[adriano]

Yes, Mark, but this is a continuation to my earlier answer to Cristopher :-)