Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 & Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98

It is not often that performances of Brahms bring Mozart to mind. Yet this happens so often in these graceful accounts by conductor Edward Gardner and his Bergen musicians, whether in their shapely and never heavy-footed phrasing, or the sonorous woodwind ensembles. In Brahms’ sunniest symphony, No. 2 in D major, Gardner keeps the music flowing, so even in the slow second movement (“Adagio non troppo”) it is easy to grasp the shape of Brahms’ long musical phrases and to notice when they don’t finish as anticipated. The scherzo third movement, on the other hand, sounds close to Tchaikovsky—another Mozart admirer—in its swift and light-footed, even balletic manner. In fine contrast, there is a real sense of triumph when the full orchestra makes its entry in the finale, recalling Mozart in his most celebratory and courtly manner. In the Fourth Symphony, Gardner respects Brahms’ homage to Bach’s disciplined grandeur with a performance that foregrounds the work’s formal and structural logic without the feeling that a Romantic sensibility is straining against these Baroque-style strictures. Yet the performance does justice to the work’s truly disconcerting moments, such as in the first movement’s very slow return of its opening theme, Gardner and his players bringing out the lizard-like coldness of Brahms’ woodwind scoring at that point.