Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Serenade No 1 in D, Op.11 [39.09]
Serenade No 2 in A, Op.16 [26.09]
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra/Riccardo Chailly
rec. Gewandhaus, Leipzig, 2014
DECCA 478 6775 [65.19]
This disc follows on from Riccardo Chailly's enthusiastically
received and award-winning cycle of the Brahms symphonies (review).
It was inevitable that Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus players —
who seem to have abandoned their geographical prefix — would turn their
attention to the two earlier serenades, symphonic in scale if not in manner.
An informative booklet note by Peter Korfmacher (in three languages) makes
expansive claims for these largely charming works, although a bizarre misunderstanding
in the English translation seems to apply his description of them as “work[s]
that did not succeed in entering the canon” to the Haydn Variations
rather than the serenades themselves.
Korfmacher draws attention to the marking Allegro molto for the opening
movement of the First Serenade, and quotes Chailly as observing that
the music can drag at a slower tempo. He cites Boult — whose Brahms
cycle despite certain eccentricities remains a model – he was after
all a pupil of Nikisch — as a precedent. In fact Chailly is not conspicuously
faster than István Kertesz, whose first movement clocks in at only one minute
longer and who conducted the premičre stereo recordings of the two serenades
as recently as the late 1960s. At the time the Stereo Record Guide
commented on the neglect accorded to these scores. These new performances
under Chailly, superbly recorded, make their continued relegation to the fringes
of the repertoire even more inexplicable.
We are told that Chailly has reduced the orchestral forces of the orchestra
for these recordings. This is presumably over and above the composer’s
own omission of the violins from the Second Serenade. That said,
the internal balance of the orchestra is magnificent, with characterful woodwind
playing throughout as in the ‘minuet’ movement of the First
Serenade (track 4). There is no shortage of power and vigour either and
the forthright delivery of the rondo finale (track 6) is properly energetic.
The absence of violins from the score of the Second Serenade might
be expected to result in a more heavy impression. Again the results here are
far from overweighted and the woodwind inflections are lively and charming.
Once again Chailly manages to find plenty of vigour in the infectious finale.
This is a splendid pendant to Chailly’s Leipzig Brahms cycle, superbly
recorded and bringing up these unfairly neglected scores as fresh as a daisy.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Previous reviews: Michael
Cookson ~~
Stephen Barber
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