Dip Your Ears, No. 244 (Tempting Brahms 4th from Saraste & WDR)

J.Brahms, Sy.#4, Academic Festival Ovt, Tragic Ovt. J-P.Saraste / WDR SO (Profil Hänssler)

Jukka-Pekka Saraste (on Twitter) has just conducted his last concert as the chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra (with Mahler 5^th, Zimmermann’s Photoptosis and the Felix Weingartner arrangement of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge) where he succeeded Semyon Bychkov and will be succeeded by Cristian Măcelaru (on Twitter). Nine productive years seem to have just flown by. It might be recency bias, but towards the end, it felt, recordings were coming out left and right – including a cycle of the complete Beethoven Symphonies which, despite the accumulating cynicisms of life in a Beethoven-saturated market, was rather splendid (ClassicsToday: Mightily Superfluous Excellence: Saraste and Beethoven Cycle No. 176).

Also among the recordings was a set of the Brahms Symphonies. I have before me the Fourth, which, on its own, sounded pretty darn good on casual hearing. Good enough to merit a little comparison, and so out came two versions from favorite cycles: Simon Rattle’s—reviewed here: Dip Your Ears, No. 100 (Rattle and Brahms)—and Günter Wand’s 1996/97 live NDR set on RCA (his last of three cycles with that orchestra). Günter Wand’s magnificently unhurried way and cool-as-a-cucumber flow is something to behold, still. Ditto Rattle’s tension and the quality of playing. (Although I don’t think that rather broad Fourth is the absolute strong-point of a generally terrific set). In many ways Saraste sits between these two approaches: Nearly the bite of Rattle, but not quite. Nearly the impossibly effortless movement of Wand, but not quite.

That might sound like a bit of Vanilla neither-nor, but that’s not the case. With excellent sound a shade on the bright side, fine playing from all the instrument groups (all caught in good presence without any awkward spotlighting) and niftily chosen, lively tempos (not that being faster than Rattle and nimble Wand suggests breaking any speed-records), the result is actually subtly outstanding. A truly joyous Academic Festival Overture and a meaty Tragic Overture round the disc out very gratifyingly. If all the senses didn’t scream: No-one needs a 2X^th set of the Brahms symphonies, one might almost be tempted to find out how the rest of Saraste’s Brahms sounds!

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