Brahms - Symphony 1 [Chailly-Concertgebouw Orchestra]
The First Symphony of Brahms is by far the best of his four in my opinion, in fact i would go as far as saying that the First Symphony is better than the other three put together!, there, i've said it, most people would disagree with me, i'm glad i'm not most people, i'm glad i'm individual me, the first time i heard this Symphony, way back in the late eighties, i instantly knew i was onto a winner, and instantly fell in love with it too, it was by Giulini on DG.
Riccardo Chailly is Italian, born in 1953, he's now in his 57th year, he recorded a Brahms Symphonic Cycle in the light eighties, and each of the Symphonies were released separately with some interesting couplings, this is the best release of the set, recorded in 1987, the booklet cover is a wonderful portrait of Chailly, crisp and clear, and with side lighting from the right, it casts some nice shadows on the left, on the face and on the hand, but it's the red background that makes the whole thing stand out a treat, and a theme for the rest of the lettering etc.
The first movement was such a revelation, people at the time exclaimed 'it's Beethoven's Tenth!', and even on my first hearing i had similar thoughts, here was a composer, already up to Op68 in his output, Brahms was a mature 43 when he unleashed his very first Symphony on the world, however, in the background this wasn't a recent work, he had begun composing this when he was 22!, therefore half of his life he had worked on this Symphony!, one of the great blessings we have from this is, that we don't have dozens of 'youth symphonies' from him, prototype early stabs at a Symphony before he got it right, so a fully fledged 'mature' work hits us, with all of the faults 'sieved' out, even the opening two or three minutes was a later flash of genius he added on.
I love the first movement by Chailly, and it's this hammering of the drums at the start which gives the work a lovely dark introduction,
Here's Gunter Wand conducting the first movement on YouTube.
