International Record Review
Brahms Symphony No 3 (19 Oct 2009)
Brahms
Symphony No. 3
Soli Deo Gloria SDG704
On no account skip straight to the symphony! This is a carefully and
compellingly prepared programme, leading from intimate occasional
choral pieces – mostly rare, all beautifully realized – via a
large-scale choral work to the plat de résistance, with the glorious and enigmatic Nänie prolonging the symphony’s closing repose.
The male-voice chorus ‘Ich schwing mein Horn ins Jammertal’ is not a
particularly elaborate work but is deeply felt and magnificently sung;
the tenors and basses of the Monteverdi Choir are beautifully precise
and impeccably tuned but never over-light. ‘Es tönt ein voller
Harfenklang’, for female voices with horn and harp, takes some very
strange turns indeed during its brief duration. (The Monteverdi Choir
previously recorded the song on its release of the
‘Liebeslieder-Walzer’; on the new recording the choral sound is warmer
and more persuasively blended.)
The previous release in Gardiner’s series (reviewed in November 2009)
included three Schubert songs; Schubert returns in the miniature
‘Einförmig ist der Liebe Gram’, Brahms’s canon on motives from the
final song in Schubert’s Winterreise,
which at first listen sent me scurrying for the booklet. Here again the
sopranos and altos of the Monteverdi Choir are on magnificent form. The
first large-scale work, Gesang der Parzen, shows Gardiner at his best: the performance is dramatic and forthright, delivering Goethe’s grim text in a single span. Nänie
makes for a fine epilogue to the symphony – again outstanding, despite
a few uncharacteristic wavers in the cruelly opening choral entries.
The Third Symphony here offers steely brilliance rather than burnished
warmth – Gardiner’s booklet note rejects the ‘idea that we can somehow
reconstruct the “real” and “original” Brahms … of course, a chimera’ in
favour of seeking ‘what his music has to say to us now’, and as in
previous releases he follows through with his stated aim. Gardiner opts
for an extremely articulated sound, in keeping with his generally
vigorous, driven approach – I can’t recall another Brahms symphony
recording with quite so little ‘pedal’. Aligning himself with Fritz
Steinbach’s documented interpretation, he is not afraid to change tempo
from time to time – that aspect of the recording will probably strike
most listeners as relatively traditional. The central section of the Poco allegretto
begins very briskly indeed but pulls back sharply for the strings’
espressivo entry; the finale likewise takes off at a daunting pace but
slackens off for the first entry of the trombones.
The winds are rather more prominent here than in the previous release,
very welcome to these ears, as this was my main reservation with that
recording. The bassoons have a pleasingly French flavour; the natural
horns are again a feature, not only in the occasional fizz in the tutti
but in the famous third-movement solo, standing out arrestingly from
the texture. The clearest direct comparison for the symphony is again
with Norrington on EMI. Gardiner’s string section is a little more
top-heavy, both in numbers and in sound; this gives Norrington a slight
edge in warmth, particularly at such moments as the divided chords in
the second movement. (Dare one hope that even mainstream orchestras
might some day do away with the culture of permanent vibrato? On both
recordings the gains in clarity and eloquence are spectacular.)
Norrington’s approach to tempo is also more continuous, favouring
subtle changes. Ultimately the comparison is between two extremely
accomplished and equally valid reappraisals of the Brahms orchestral
sound – there is little to choose between them, especially given that
the discs have only the symphony in common. Certainly Gardiner’s series
continues as the most striking Brahms traversal of recent years, for
both its performances and its programming.
Carl Rosman
))
