Johannes Brahms - Symphony No 2 op. 73 in D major - Georges Bizet Symphony No. 1 in C major DVD 2005 / Conducted by Pavel Sorokin, Amar Lapinsch / State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra Moscow / Amado - Cascade GmbH

UPC 4028462970026

MADE IN GERMANY

REGION 0 PAL DVD (ALL REGIONS)

AUDIO: Dolby 5.1, Dolby 2.0

Total Runtime: 77 minutes

English Summary:

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877, during a visit to Pörtschach am Wörthersee, a town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its composition was brief in comparison with the 21 years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony.

The symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.

The cheery and almost pastoral mood of the symphony often invites comparisons with Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, but, perhaps mischievously, Brahms wrote to his publisher on November 22, 1877, that the symphony "is so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it. I have never written anything so sad, and the score must come out in mourning."

The premiere was given in Vienna on 30 December 1877 by the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Hans Richter; Walter Frisch notes that it had originally been scheduled for 9 December, but "in one of those little ironies of music history, it had to be postponed [because] the players were so preoccupied with learning Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner." A typical performance lasts between 40 and 50 minutes.

The Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for a 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration."^[1] Bizet started work on the symphony on 29 October 1855, four days after turning 17, and finished it roughly a month later.^[2] It was written while he was studying at the Paris Conservatoire under the composer Charles Gounod, and was evidently a student assignment. Bizet showed no apparent interest in having it performed or published, and the piece was never played in his lifetime. He used certain material from the symphony in later works, however.^[3] There is no mention of the work in Bizet's letters, and it was unknown to his earlier biographers. His widow, Geneviève Halévy (1849–1926), gave the manuscript to Reynaldo Hahn, who passed it along with other papers to the archives of the conservatory library, where it was found in 1933 by Jean Chantavoine.^[4][5] Soon thereafter, Bizet's first British biographer Douglas Charles Parker (1885–1970) showed the manuscript to the conductor Felix Weingartner, who led the first performance in Basel, Switzerland, on 26 February 1935.

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No 2 op. 73 in D major 

Conductor Amar Lapinsch

Georges Bizet

Symphony No. 1 in C major

Conductor Pavel Sorokin

Orchestra: State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra Moscow

Date of Recording June 2001

Place of recording: Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory

Production: Andreas Ehrig