Concertgebouworkest - Brahms’ Symfonieën nr. 1 en 3

John Eliot Gardiner & Brahms

John Eliot Gardiner and the Concertgebouw Orchestra close their Brahms cycle on a grand note, with all four symphonies spread over two evenings in Amsterdam, Hamburg and Luxembourg. The British conductor likes to strip Brahms' works of their sometimes too serious, 'heavy' image. As with the First Symphony . Although it arose after years of toil for the composer, Gardiner likes to talk about an 'incitement to dance' in the work, and about the ever-changing, ear-tickling rhythms. And in the Third Symphony , Gardiner hears the resonance of Brahms's chamber music. He points to the 'seductive clarinet' in the first movement, and 'the intimacy of the conversation between individual instruments'. In this way, the Brit places the well-known symphonies in a completely new, fresh context. And that's what he's all about: a Brahms 'for our time'.