Following his success with the Brahms concertos and symphonies it is not
surprising that Chailly has turned his attention to the Serenades. These,
along with the D minor piano concerto, are the composer’s earliest
orchestral works. They are not often heard in concert but Brahmsians like
them and they have had several recordings. Brahms wrote them while he was
working as a court musician in Detmold, before his move to Vienna.
These serenades are in the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. For them, as
Donald Tovey said, a serenade was “a symphony in cheerful style with a large
number of movements”. He could have added that serenades were often intended
for performance in the open air and as civilized background music to
accompany the leisure of aristocrats. Brahms’ serenades are definitely
concert music but they have retained the generally cheerful style and a
larger number of movements than the symphonies. The result is that they are
both quite long and can be heard as trial runs for his symphonies. They are,
however, masterpieces in their own right. You can hear debts to Haydn and
early Beethoven but in no way do they detract from the originality and
mastery of what Brahms offers here.
I was disconcerted by the first movement of No 1 when I first heard this
performance. It was not the fast speed: this is specified by Brahms and is
needed to retain the momentum through a long movement. In any case Chailly
slackens almost imperceptibly at moments of repose. No, it was the overall
balance of the orchestra, with an emphasis on the drone base with which it
opens and which frequently recurs. Consulting the score and listening again
I find that Chailly is exactly right, following the markings and exercising
the ear for orchestral colour, which was so evident in his recordings of the
French and Russian repertory, in this very different idiom. It is
interesting and surprising that Brahms wrote two scherzos for this first
serenade, and another for the second, when he rather avoided the form in his
symphonies. This first one is fleeting and shadowy, like an anticipation of
that in Mahler’s seventh symphony, written nearly fifty years later. The
slow movement provides an opportunity to enjoy the fine solo and choir work
from the woodwinds, with the German-style clarinets noteworthy. The tiny
minuet which follows is a reminder that this work started life as a nonet
for solo wind and strings. The second scherzo is full of echoes of Beethoven
and is an exercise in his most vigorous style. The final rondo is on a grand
scale with a number of rhythmic traps in it.
Serenade No 2 is unusual for omitting violins from the orchestra. The
result is that this is a work which features wind instruments – as
eighteenth century serenades often did – while also giving opportunities to
the strings from time to time. The effect is not sombre, but as of evening
rather than daytime. I was captivated by this performance, because Chailly
gets the mood exactly right, following which everything falls into place.
The opening Allegro moderato is full of Brahmsian fingerprints - passages in
thirds, a triple time second subject and a prominent role for the oboe. The
scherzo is another Beethovenian one, both terse and short. The slow movement
has a huge triple time theme but Chailly keeps it moving – the days of slow,
sluggish Brahms are clearly over. The Quasi Menuetto which follows is really
Brahms’ answer to the Beethoven-type scherzo: a dancing movement with the
winds playing in thirds but lyrical rather than either playful or ferocious.
What it is not is a minuet. The Finale was described by Tovey as “pure
merry-go-round” but he went on to say “it is the merry-go-round as enjoyed
by the child, not as exposed by the realist”. Brahms adds a piccolo to the
score and its squeals add to the enjoyment.
For comparison I turned to two older versions. Kertész recorded the
serenades in 1967 with the London Symphony Orchestra, available on Eloquence
both as an individual disc (
466 676-2) and in a set of all Kertész’ Decca Brahms
recordings (480 4839). The recording now sounds its age but the performances
are fine in a quite different way from Chailly’s, not because of his speeds,
which are not that different, but because of the very different sound of the
LSO compared to the Leipzigers. The English strings are fully the equal of
their German counterparts but the wind have a much brighter sound: not only
do they play on a different style of instrument but they also have a
different, though equally valid, ideal of sound. Haitink’s Concertgebouw
versions were made in 1976 and 1980 (
review); they are also analogue recordings but they still sound
fine in a view of these works quite close to Chailly’s. I haven’t heard
Abbado’s versions which date from the 1980s and are early digital.
I should put in a word of praise for the sleeve-note by Peter Korfmacher,
idiomatically translated by Richard Evidon. He describes and characterizes
the works well and elicits some really illuminating comments from Chailly.
On the other hand I wish the Decca designers could come up with something
more imaginative than a mugshot of Chailly for the cover. He is a fine
conductor but nothing to look at. I would have liked a picture of the castle
at Detmold, where Brahms worked while he was composing these serenades.
If you want the serenades in a fine modern recording, and every Brahmsian
who loves the symphonies should acquire them, then Chailly’s new version is
now the one to go for.
Stephen Barber
Previous review:
Michael Cookson
