BRAHMS: Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 (NTSC)

Johannes BRAHMS
Symphony No. 3 in F major¸ Op. 90
Symphony No. 4 in E minor¸ Op. 98

WDR-Sinfonieorchester Köln, Semyon Bychkov

Sound Format: PCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Picture Format: 16:9 (Documentary 4:3)
Menu Languages: GB, D, F, SP
Region Code: 0 worldwide
Running Time: 111 mins (84 mins Symphonies + 28 mins Doc)
DVD9 / NTSC

Cat. No: 101 245

“… Any performance which captures, as this does, a sense of the music being at one with itself is already halfway to heaven.” --The Gramophone on the CD release

The second in this Brahms symphonic cycle, following the release of Part I in September, sees Semyon Bychkov again conduct the WDR-Sinfonieorchester Köln in performances of Symphonies 3 & 4.

Far from being conservative, as Brahms often has been described, his symphonies show the composer as a groundbreaking pioneer far ahead of his time. Semyon Bychkov’s love and affection for the music of Brahms goes back to the beginnings of his conducting career, gathering strength throughout his career. In harmony with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, he shows us the depth and the magnificent density of texture and feeling within these symphonies.

“With the exception – a glorious one – of Kurt Sanderling, there are no Soviet conductors whom we immediately associate with Brahms. So where has Bychkov landed and how does he see the music? The answer is, in a logical, clear-sighted way, more after the manner of Weingartner or Boult than Furtwängler or Sanderling … Texts are clean. Textures reflect Brahms’s interest in a pre-Wagnerian sound world. … The results, for the most part, are unexceptionably fine”--The Gramophone