Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Haydn Variations & Academic Festival Overture Bruno Walter

Brahms Symphony #1

In 1960 when Bruno Walter was eighty-four years old, two years before his death, he recorded the entire four symphonies of Brahms in stereo with a pick up orchestra of first-rate studio and symphony players in Los Angeles, the city where he had lived for many years. Although these musicians could not have met in the studio for more than a few rehearsals, they sound as if they had played together for decades. Undoubtedly, it was an honor for all of them to collaborate with this great musician, and they were truly inspired to play at their best.

There is something utterly genial and gorgeous in the way Walter conducts this music. An autumnal glow. All the throbbing drama and pulsating rhythms are there, but unlike the recordings of his contemporaries Toscanini and Toscanini's protoge, Solti, who also specialized in this repetoire, there is also something very relaxed, unhurried, in the way this orchestra sings out the melodies of Brahms. Walter was after all one of the great opera conductors who came out of the Berlin and Viennese school of conducting and here he gives Brahms melodic genius its full due.