Brahms · Symphonies · PO · Riccardo Muti

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Brahms · Symphonies · PO · Riccardo Muti

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Brahms · Symphonies · PO · Riccardo Muti

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This re-release of late-1980s recordings of Brahms symphonies can best be summed up as a missed opportunity for both the Philadelphia Orchestra and its then-music director, Riccardo Muti. Without a doubt, the orchestral playing throughout is gorgeous, from the typically lush strings to the carefully wrought wind solos and fabulous horn playing, and few observers would have any qualms recommending this set as a safe, riskless choice. And that is part of the problem, for these are performances largely devoid of excitement, flair, and energy–to the point that all four symphonies and the associated orchestra works on these discs congeal into a lackluster, homogenized whole, creating a forgettable listening experience. It's Muti presciently transmogrified into Sawallisch.

Muti luxuriates in quotidian details of orchestral texture and observes first-movement exposition repeats but sidesteps the thrust and drive of these well-known works that do not lack for recording exemplars. The First Symphony comes across as valedictory and reserved with a first movement introduction that has all the tension of a limp noodle. The following movements follow this lead in often lyrical but ponderous portrayals that betray nothing of this conductor's usual vitality. The Second Symphony is more appropriately serene and smooth-edged but the mood remains the same pretty much through the whole work, even in the last movement, which ought to catch fire at the end (for a totally opposite experience, check out Toscanini's NBC set on RCA).

The Third starts off more promisingly with a strongly driven theme in the strings; but then we are almost immediately back into a reflective sound world. And with the Fourth, Muti again takes relaxed and graceful tempos, leaving us to imagine the passion and intensity that never materializes. Finally, a nicely played but dull Haydn Variations, an adequate Academic Festival Overture, and a plain vanilla "Tragic" Overture fill out this ultimately underwhelming set, whose main redeeming virtue is the magnificent Philadelphians.
Classicstoday.com (review complete recordings)