Description
Channel Classics: Brahms — Symphony No. 3 & Serenade No. 2, Fischer / Budapest Festival Orchestra (Hybrid SACD)
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Hybrid SACD (Super Audio CD)
- Brand / Label: Channel Classics
- Composer: Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
- Performers: Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer (conductor)
- Catalog Number: CCS SA 43821
- UPC: 723385438212
- Release Year: 2021
- Genre: Classical
- Style: Romantic, orchestral
Product Features
- Format: Hybrid SACD — plays on all CD players
- Discs: 1
- Tracks: 9
- Total runtime: 68:13
- Audio: DSD, Stereo + Multichannel Surround 5.0
- Recording: DXD
- Booklet: English, German, French
- Made in Germany
- Condition: Factory Sealed (New)
Overview
Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra have spent years building one of the most admired Brahms cycles on record, and this installment pairs the Third Symphony with the rarely heard Second Serenade. It's an inspired coupling — the autumnal grandeur of the symphony beside the sunlit, woodwind-rich serenade.
The Symphony No. 3 is the most concentrated of the four, and the trickiest to bring off: every movement ends quietly, including the finale, so the drama has to come from within rather than from a big push to the finish. Fischer's reading is supple and transparent, the famous Poco allegretto sighing rather than swooning, the whole thing built on the BFO's warm, blended sound.
The Serenade No. 2 is the real discovery here for many listeners. Brahms scored it without violins, giving it a dark-toned, mellow color all its own — violas, cellos, winds and horns. It's young Brahms at his most relaxed and pastoral. Channel Classics records both in DXD, and the surround SACD layer opens up the textures beautifully. A distinguished release for Brahms collectors, and it plays on any CD player.
Interesting Facts
- The Budapest Festival Orchestra, co-founded by Iván Fischer in 1983, is consistently ranked among the world's finest orchestras.
- Brahms's Symphony No. 3 (1883) is unique among his symphonies in that every movement ends quietly, including the finale.
- The Third Symphony's third-movement Poco allegretto is among Brahms's most famous melodies, used in films and arrangements many times over.
- The Serenade No. 2 (1857–1860) is scored without violins, producing an unusually warm, dark orchestral color dominated by violas, cellos and winds.
- The recording was made in DXD (Digital eXtreme Definition), a very high-resolution format, and issued as a hybrid SACD with stereo and 5.0 surround layers.
- Iván Fischer is known not only as a conductor but as a composer and as an outspoken cultural figure in Hungary.
Track Listing
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (1883)
- Allegro con brio — 13:43
- Andante — 8:29
- Poco allegretto — 6:39
- Allegro — 8:31
Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16 (1857–1860)
- Allegro moderato — 8:15
- Scherzo: Vivace — 2:50
- Adagio non troppo — 8:00
- Quasi menuetto — 4:51
- Rondo: Allegro — 6:29
Publishers
Released 2021 by Channel Classics Records bv, the Netherlands. Recorded in DXD; hybrid SACD made in Germany. Booklet in English, German and French.
Have this one? A short review helps other Brahms and Fischer collectors.
