COMPOSERS: Brahms
LABELS: LSO Live
ALBUM TITLE: Brahms Symphony No. 4
WORKS: Symphony No. 4
PERFORMER: London Symphony OrchestraBernard Haitink
CATALOGUE NO: LSO 0547
Since I was rather underwhelmed by
Haitink’s Brahms Third Symphony
in this series (reviewed in January),
it’s a pleasure to say that this is,
on the whole, a sterling Fourth, at
once purposeful and elegiac. Each
of the four movements is firmly
and satisfyingly shaped, detail and
phrasing always nicely judged.
Haitink finds more light and shade
within the big spans than many
interpreters do, effectively pointing
the expressive and textural extremes.
For example, the intimate, chambermusical
quality he brings to the first
appearance of the dolce cello tune in
the Andante, as contrasted with the
majestically opulent sonorities he
conjures from the LSO strings for its
transfigured reprise towards the end.
Indeed the orchestra plays superbly for
him throughout. The scherzo exudes
a rough yet elegant dynamism, the
finale is measured and well controlled,
suggesting rather than embodying a
sense of tragic inevitability. In the end
it lacks a little of the rock-like weight
and solidity we’ve come to expect.
Though it’s best to hear the disc on
an SACD system, the sound is also
excellent on a standard two-channel
CD player. With no coupling, at just
over 41 minutes this is perhaps rather
short measure, but Haitink fans will
presumably not be hesitating. And
even they could not claim this as a
benchmark reading in a crowded
field that includes Abbado (more
incandescence), Carlos Kleiber (more
urgency), Blomstedt (richer in overall
expression) and Barenboim (just
generally inspired) even before one
starts on the timeless classics of Walter,
Toscanini, Koussevitzky… Still, it’s a
distinguished, safely recommendable
version. Calum MacDonald
benchmark Abbado DG 435 3492