Brahms: Symphony No. 2

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

The second instalment of Marin Alsop's Brahms symphonies series is as authoritative, understanding and warm-hearted as the first. — BBC Music Magazine, December 2005, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 31st Oct 2005
Catalogue No: 8557429
Label: Naxos
Length: 64 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Work length44:59

Album only

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Marin Alsop

I. Allegro non troppo

Track length20:09

Album only

II. Adagio non troppo

Track length9:45

$2.00

$2.60

III. Allegretto grazioso, quasi andantino

Track length5:14

$1.00

$1.30

IV. Allegro con spirito

Track length9:51

$2.00

$2.60

Excerpt, Brahms: Hungarian Dances

Work length19:59

$8.00

$10.40

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Marin Alsop

Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor (orch. J. Brahms)

Track length3:16

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 3 in F major (orch. J. Brahms)

Track length2:46

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 10 in F major (orch. J. Brahms)

Track length1:52

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 17 in F sharp minor (orch. A. Dvorak)

Track length3:35

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 18 in D major (orch. A. Dvorak)

Track length1:32

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 19 in B minor (orch. A. Dvorak)

Track length2:39

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 20 in E minor (orch. A. Dvorak)

Track length2:44

$1.00

$1.30

Hungarian Dance No. 21 in E minor (orch. A. Dvorak)

Track length1:35

$1.00

$1.30

Reviews
Explore

Reviews

December 2005

The second instalment of Marin Alsop's Brahms symphonies series is as authoritative, understanding and warm-hearted as the first.

2010

This is a late-summer idyll of a performance, easily paced, nicely judged and warmly played.
For first-time buyers it will provide unalloyed pleasure; for older hands it will satisfy without necessarily enlightening or surprising.
It is one of those Brahms performances whose centre of gravity is in the violas, cellos and horns.
This is apt to the symphony's lyrical, ruminative character, though there are times when the music is robbed of its light and shade. In the finale, for example, one rather misses the chill-before-dawn mood of the lead-in to the recapitulation; and one needs a keener differentiation of horn and trumpet tone to catch the final page's incomparable D major blaze. Alsop's account of the third movement is strong in contrast, the oboe-led Allegrettograzioso strangely muted, the quicker 2/4 section done more or less to perfection. That said, you might think the slow movement under-characterised: insufficiently distinct in tone and temper from the first.
The symphony was recorded in Blackheath Concert Hall, the Hungarian Dances in Watford's Colisseum: a bigger, brawnier acoustic that doesn't suit the music quite so well. In dance No 18 in D, one of Dvorák's orchestrations, there is a noisy, cluttered feel to the performance. By contrast, the alfresco No 3 in F, winningly and economically orchestrated by Brahms himself, is played with real charm and style.

Brahms: Symphony No. 2

CD

Downloads

Contents

Download queue