PASC157 - Symphony No 2 in D, Op. 73 - Brahms

Download here:	download price	NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini Recorded in concert at Carnegie Hall on Saturday 10th February, 1951 Originally broadcast by NBC Radio. The 1/4" tape transfer of broadcast discs used for this transfer is understood to have been sourced directly from the Toscanini family archives. Transfer and XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, April 2009 Cover artwork based on a photograph of Arturo Toscanini Total duration: 35:45 ©2009 Pristine Audio Download ID: 638356-9 A Pristine Audio Natural Sound XR restoration Scroll down for PDF covers and cue-sheet download For FLAC playback and conversion support see our Help pages More: Toscanini at Pristine Classical	Play first movement:
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Toscanini sets Brahms on fire in this stunning performance

With quite astonishing sound quality from XR remastering it's sensational!

A full CD-quality movement from this recording appears on the free FLAC download Pristine Classical - The 2009 Collection - click here for details

Notes on the recording:

Every so often when working on historic recordings, something comes along which is both entirely unexpected, and totally blows you away - this is one of those recordings. A last minute choice for restoration when another recording turned out to be impossible to restore (for technical reasons in the copy I'd received), this Toscanini recording had been lurking, unheard, on a tape in a pile at the back of my studio for several months, awaiting my eventual attention.

As soon as I wound the tape onto the Revox spools and started to listen I realised this had the makings of a good recording from a technical point of view. Clearly a clean dub from very clean master discs, surface noise was very low, and any clicks clean, low level, light and intermittent. Furthermore it was a very well-made recording, with the acoustic of Carnegie Hall to my ears far preferable than the more usually heard Studio 8H. The audience were so inaudible that at times I wondered if there was one (an occasional distance sound between movements suggests there was), and the announcer was back on the microphone at the end of the piece with no applause present at all.

To all intents and purposes, then, it was on a par technically with a good "studio" recording - and indeed the following day Toscanini and the orchestra returned to the hall to make a series of commercial LP recordings, so we can I hope assume that this used the same technical set-up.

If there were shortcomings in the sound, these were certainly a result of the not-quite-flat tonal response of the microphones used at the time. Though better than those Decca were using at the very beginning of the 1950s, there's still something not right about the direct sound, typifiied by mid-range congestion and a boxed-in top end. This too is music to my ears, as it's ideal material for XR remastering to tackle - a basically well-made recording with tonal imbalances - and the results speak for themselves. The sound is full, rich, brilliantly well-balanced, and with Ambient Stereo too, a delight for the listener.

All of this would be secondary if the performance was merely average, but it's not. Toscanini zips along at quite a pace, clcoking in at under 36 minutes in a symphony which regularly takes over forty - yet he doesn't sound hurried to me, and his finale is one hundred percent Allegro con spirito! This doesn't mean his attention to detail and fine nuance is in any way compromised - and I've rarely been moved by this work as much as I have been by this performance, which at the time of writing I'm just going to have to listen to again, one more time...

Brahms - Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73

notes from Wikipedia

The Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73 was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877 during a visit to the Austrian Alps. Its gestation was brief in comparison with the fifteen years which Brahms took to complete his First Symphony. The symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.

The cheerfulness of the Symphony has been likened with the pastoral mood of Ludwig van Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. In contrast, Brahms' First Symphony was marked by its sombre tonality (C minor).

The composer had written to his publisher (November 22, 1877) that the forthcoming symphony would be music of melancholy, that indeed the score must come out in mourning. And while the work is neither tragic nor especially dramatic, the mood of the first two movements, largely quiet or contemplative and reaching climaxes in the minor, suggests that this letter may not have been entirely a creation of wit. The last two movements are lighter in mood but also much briefer. The subtle interplay of contrasting melodies overlapping and being passed around throughout the instruments of the orchestra allow the conductor to dictate the mood by emphasizing different parts.

The premiere was given on December 30, 1877 in Vienna under the direction of Hans Richter. A typical performance lasts between 40 and 50 minutes.

In the Second Symphony, Brahms preserved the structural principles of the Classical symphony, in which two lively outer movements frame a slow second movement followed by a short scherzo:

I. Allegro non troppo

The cellos and double-basses start off the symphony on a tranquil note before the horns gently announce the main theme. The woodwind instruments develop the section and other instruments join in gradually progressing into a full-bodied forte (bar 58). A new theme is introduced in bar 82 in F-sharp minor. After bar 182, the exposition may be repeated from the beginning depending on the conductor and orchestra. After the development section (see sonata form), the second subject is repeated again in bar 370. Towards the conclusion of the first movement, Brahms marked bar 497 as "in tempo, sempre tranquillo", and it is this mood which pervades the remainder of the movement as it closes in the home key of D major.

II. Adagio non troppo

A brooding subject is introduced by the cellos from bars 1 to 12 alongside the bassoons and double basses. Brahms inserted a new tempo in bar 33 marked "L'istesso tempo, ma grazioso". Here, the dark and sombre mood of the piece continues until the end of the movement.

III. Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)

Pizzicato cello provides the backdrop at the beginning but the oboe carries the main melody. A contrasting second subject marked "Presto ma non assai" begins with the string instruments and the full orchestra develops the theme. Bar 107 returns to the main tempo and gentle mood but the idyll setting is again disrupted in bar 126 when the earlier Presto marking makes a re-entry. Brahms yet again diverts the piece back into its principal tempo (bar 194) and thereafter to its peaceful close.

IV. Allegro con spirito

Busy-sounding (but quiet) strings begin the final movement. A loud section breaks in unexpectedly in bar 23 with the full orchestra. As the excitement appears to fade away, violins introduce a new subject in A major marked "largamente" (to be played broadly). The wind instruments would repeat this and develops into the other instruments as well. Bar 155 of the movement repeats the symphony's first subject again but instead of the joyful outburst heard earlier, Brahms introduced the movement's development section. A mid-movement "tranquillo" section (bar 206) elaborates earlier material. The first theme comes in again (bar 244) and the familiar orchestral forte is played. This time, instead of the A major theme in the "largamente" marking, Brahms allows the theme to be reprised in the symphony's home key of D major. Towards the end of the symphony, descending chords and a mazy run of notes by various instruments of the orchestra (bars 395 to 412) sound out the familiar A major theme again but this time drowned out in a blaze of brass instruments as the symphony ends on a triumphant note by the full orchestra complete with a timpani roll.

Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Brahms)

Find out more:   1st mvt: Allegro non troppo (Ambient Stereo version) CD covers to print:   CD-writing cuesheet: [What's that?] Download our Full Discography Printable text listings of all Pristine Audio historic releases XR remastering by Andrew Rose:

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