(Actually from Michelle's husband Alan!) Another entertaining review - loved your introduction! As a student in the 80s in London I used to go along to see the likes of Solti, Rostrapovich, Boulez, Rowicki and Previn but was always knocked for six by any Mahler or Bruckner with Tennstedt. I recently took early retirement and we live on an island miles from a concert hall so I'm really enjoying listening to your recommended recordings. I just wanted to say thanks very much for all your excellent work here and I'm looking forward to trying a new Brahms 4.
Been a good couple of weeks to be a classical music listener. Great versions of works by Bartok, Bruckner and Brahms. It is nice to hear fresh versions of these pieces by conductors and ensembles they clearly know and love the music and have the cops to deliver to goods. On top of that all are available in Apple Music so I can listen every morning on the train right after I hear you broadcast. Thanks for all you do kind sir!
I just accidentally listened to this recording not so long ago and I can't agree more with Dave that this has been a very gorgeous and impressive performance. The interpretation is accurate right to the point that I understand.
When it is 0400 out here in the Pacific, in Auckland, I am up and my first check is your latest review, which I listen to while exercising (still in lockdown!). I am like so many others here who like Honeck and am so very pleased with the result for one of my most favorite symphonies! I have so many Fourths I have almost lost count. But this one will occupy much of my listening time for the foreseeable future. Another great review, and thank you for leading the way!
Incidentally, Dave--unless I have missed a video in which you did this already!--you mention the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia here, and that reminded me to tell you how much I am looking forward to your sequel to your first video on essential works for string orchestra. I know you're in the midst of multiple schleps, crusades, and other adventures, but I think a talk that ranged from the Vaughan Williams piece to Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht and moved forward from there would be amazing. As if this request were not in itself irritating enough, I am about to make a similar one on your Monteux box video.
Very interesting timing differences from Karajan 78 4th, and Honeck’s: 1) Honeck 6 seconds faster, 2) Honeck 6 seconds faster, 3) Honeck 6 seconds faster, and 4) Honeck 28 seconds faster… But Throughout, even in the finale, there are times that Honeck seems slower, yet he makes it up elsewhere…
I’ll have to give it a listen. I’ve been hot and cold on Honeck. My reference Brahms 4ths have been C. Kleiber and Dohnanyi, not to forget Walter either.
How would you compare this performance to Skrowaczewski’s with the Halle Orchestra? The Skrowaczewski doesn’t get much attention, but it has been my favorite Brahms Fourth for years.
I completely agree with your conclusion: tremendously vigorous! Been enjoying this performance for about a week now, also really enjoy the pairing, just a good recording in general!
No conductor bats 100 all the time. They all made their share of dud recordings. I look forward to hearing this recording. The Pittsburgh orchestra is just phenomenal - the perfect sound for Brahms. And boy do I wish they'd record more Mahler - that Exton series ended way too soon.
What a Brahms 4!! I have heard it on TH-cam as soon as I finished watching this video. Even listening to my $ 35 Logitech desktop speakers, the recording is as splendid as the performance. This Fourth has all the muscularity and punch, yet at the same time is marvelously "sung" (for lack of a better word), and transparent - in German "durchhörbar". One can indeed "hear through" every detail , in wonderful balance. I am captivated. It's as if I hear this work for the very first time. MacMillan's Larghetto is, to my ears, an unfortunate coupling. After this invigorating Brahms Fourth, what follows is like sitting in a room with walls covered with wallpaper full of Gregorian chant, incense coming out of my desktop speakers, while succumbing to sleep. I find this orchestral music underwhelming. There is nothing that really "goes to the heart" , especially after the (in the best sense of the word) overwhelming impression of what has come before. Onward to other tasks at hand, in the happy knowledge there is a marvelous Brahns 4 to listen to again after they are done. All my hats off to the Pittsburgh musicians and their director Manfred Honeck: they've made my day (and will make many more with this one recording alone).
A favorite memory of Honeck's explanatory liner notes (which as a spoonfeeder I like): the comment in Beethoven's 7th about choosing to end the second movement with pizzicato strings because if it's good enough for Carlos Kleiber, it should be good enough for anybody.
Yeah but it's considered a filler so what's the point? I actually love the Tragic Overture. Brahms 4th is only half a disc long. You could easily fit another substantial piece.
I haven't pulled out this great symphony in a bit, I've been in one of those iconoclastic anti-warhorse moods. I'm one of those boring people who loves the Kleiber 4th, so I'm excited to see how one in modern sound and with a great current conductor compares!
So Honeck has pulled out of his fussy, futzing, navel-gazing tailspin--and in my favorite Brahms symphony! This is wonderful news. I will have to listen to this immediately.
This Macmillan piece is, for the lack of a better term, more conservative than the kind of thing he usually composes. I very much like his stuff. The album he did for Chandos that has him conducting his “The Confession of Isobel Gowdie” and “Symphony no. 3 ‘Silence’” is one of my favorite recordings ever. But the Larghetto here, I haven’t fully digested. At least, not yet.
To be honest, I am not sure whether there is anything at all to "fully digest". I have heard it once online here on TH-cam, and I did not experience a single moment while listining to the the music that "caught" me thinking I'd need to give it a further listen. It is "nice" music at best. That being said, I am with you in regards to the Chandos album.
@@ewmbr1164 That's pretty much how I feel about the Larghetto too.The "digest" issue is with regard to how different it is compared to what Macmillan has written before. It's very different and unusually 'conservative'.
Dave: With respect to Honeck's coupling the MacMillan piece it should not be forgotten that both Honeck and MacMillan know each other and are both devout Catholics. So there is a sort of fraternal sympatico perhaps? All best to you.
I will compare for sure with Brahms' symphony no 4 conducted by Reiner, William Steinberg, Stokowski and Janowski conducting the same orchestra (which has surely different musicians) I guess Honeck has a better sound, but ...
I just returned from a concert tonight with Manfred Honeck conducting the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's First and it was awesome: Nuances, contrasts, humor - everything was on its place in that performance. And seated behind the orchestra allowed for the thrill to see Honecks conducting which includes very sympathetic facial expressions (and his moans and groans as well - in mezzoforte ;-D ).
Honeck grunts pretty loudly in some these recordings, including this one. He's not the only one of course. I guess humming and grunting in recordings doesn't bother you, Dave? Is it unfair to expect that the conductor keeps quiet duing a performance?
Maybe Johannes Brahms was there during the performance, hovering over and in the proceedings? Not merely Honeck channeling Brahms, but perhaps rather more Brahms leading Honeck and his colleagues onstage? In which case it would be Brahms redeeming Honeck...? ;-)
Hate to disagree with this wonderful review of this impressive but ultimately a bit disappointing (in my opinion) performance (but I guess that's part of the fun in reading/watching reviews). I'm a big fan of Honeck's work in Pittsburgh, but it didn't do it for me this time. I admire Honeck's ability to vary the tempi sensibly, and the magnificent playing throughout, but I find the performance too tense and hasty. It is livelier than one comes to expect in Brahms's 4th, but it comes out as breathless. For example, the development section in the first movement always struck me as some kind of "musical pondering" and I admire performances that gives this feeling of grandeur. In this performance the quiet, relaxed, "philosophical" part went by almost unnoticeably. Another thing that irritates me in Honeck's recordings (not just this one) is the sudden emphasis of musical lines in the brass. The playing is gorgeous, and it's always nice to hear new details, but sometimes I feel that this emphasis takes away from the main purpose or texture of a passage in favour of some one-note "screams" from the brass. This effect was quite nice in Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Strauss, but it's less convincing in Brahms. Sometimes the brass buries everything else and the texture is completely lost - for example, in the climax of the fourth movement, when the brass comes in with the passacaglia's theme, the strings texture is completely inaudible due to the deafening brass dynamics. Overall, I'm still glad that major forces like Honeck and Pittsburgh gave us this new performance, and I hope to see more modern conductors present inspirational (as opposed to mundane) takes on Brahms's music. Even though it wasn't completely successful in my opinion, it was very energetic and the exquisite playing and conducting are defiantly commendable and worth listening for. I just wish it was a little more relaxed at times.
I am afraid that my reaction is similar to GuyDerKonig's. I listened to the complete performance on TH-cam streamed through my main stereo system. Marvelously played by the PSO, but "too tense and hasty" to the point of possibly running a bit roughshod over what Brahms intended IMHO. As a comparison I listened to the Reiner/Royal Philharmonic/Chesky (a Wilkinson recording job that is not chopped liver) which is/was beautifully executed with a compelling momentum more in keeping with the tragic intent of the piece. The Honeck/PSO performance is everything Dave described (Thanks, Dave!), but I fear that the sense of excitement is a bit on the superficial side. I do have other Honeck/PSO recordings of which I think very highly. However, YMMV.
@@robertbubeck9194 I think your criticism is a bit generic, frankly, and you just need to take some time and get used to the performance. What strikes me as superficial is your description of the performance after a quick listen via TH-cam streaming. I don't know what you heard, but it's not Honeck that needs to slow down.
Yes, I will give this a go. Brahms is generally a turn off for me, because performances are generally heavy, stodgy affairs. This sounds very interesting.
I'm so relieved that Honeck's back on his game for this recording! Brahms 4 is one of my favourite symphonies, I cannot WAIT to give this a listen!
(Actually from Michelle's husband Alan!) Another entertaining review - loved your introduction! As a student in the 80s in London I used to go along to see the likes of Solti, Rostrapovich, Boulez, Rowicki and Previn but was always knocked for six by any Mahler or Bruckner with Tennstedt. I recently took early retirement and we live on an island miles from a concert hall so I'm really enjoying listening to your recommended recordings. I just wanted to say thanks very much for all your excellent work here and I'm looking forward to trying a new Brahms 4.
Been a good couple of weeks to be a classical music listener. Great versions of works by Bartok, Bruckner and Brahms. It is nice to hear fresh versions of these pieces by conductors and ensembles they clearly know and love the music and have the cops to deliver to goods. On top of that all are available in Apple Music so I can listen every morning on the train right after I hear you broadcast. Thanks for all you do kind sir!
I just accidentally listened to this recording not so long ago and I can't agree more with Dave that this has been a very gorgeous and impressive performance. The interpretation is accurate right to the point that I understand.
When it is 0400 out here in the Pacific, in Auckland, I am up and my first check is your latest review, which I listen to while exercising (still in lockdown!). I am like so many others here who like Honeck and am so very pleased with the result for one of my most favorite symphonies! I have so many Fourths I have almost lost count. But this one will occupy much of my listening time for the foreseeable future. Another great review, and thank you for leading the way!
My pleasure.
Have been listening to this record on Qobuz for a few weeks now - thoroughly enjoyable! Decided to properly purchase it as well now, good stuff!
I offer my liner notes as follows: "It sounds great. I enjoy it". :)
Incidentally, Dave--unless I have missed a video in which you did this already!--you mention the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia here, and that reminded me to tell you how much I am looking forward to your sequel to your first video on essential works for string orchestra. I know you're in the midst of multiple schleps, crusades, and other adventures, but I think a talk that ranged from the Vaughan Williams piece to Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht and moved forward from there would be amazing. As if this request were not in itself irritating enough, I am about to make a similar one on your Monteux box video.
That's OK. These suggestions are helpful. Thanks.
Very interesting timing differences from Karajan 78 4th, and Honeck’s: 1) Honeck 6 seconds faster, 2) Honeck 6 seconds faster, 3) Honeck 6 seconds faster, and 4) Honeck 28 seconds faster… But Throughout, even in the finale, there are times that Honeck seems slower, yet he makes it up elsewhere…
I’ll have to give it a listen. I’ve been hot and cold on Honeck. My reference Brahms 4ths have been C. Kleiber and Dohnanyi, not to forget Walter either.
How would you compare this performance to Skrowaczewski’s with the Halle Orchestra? The Skrowaczewski doesn’t get much attention, but it has been my favorite Brahms Fourth for years.
I find Skrowaczewski to be terribly bland.
I will definitely give the Honeck a listen then:)
I'm here to add to the chorus of the relieved Honeck fans.
I completely agree with your conclusion: tremendously vigorous! Been enjoying this performance for about a week now, also really enjoy the pairing, just a good recording in general!
I really like it. Basically straightforward, but not generic…. Wonderful playing…
No conductor bats 100 all the time. They all made their share of dud recordings. I look forward to hearing this recording. The Pittsburgh orchestra is just phenomenal - the perfect sound for Brahms. And boy do I wish they'd record more Mahler - that Exton series ended way too soon.
What a Brahms 4!! I have heard it on TH-cam as soon as I finished watching this video. Even listening to my $ 35 Logitech desktop speakers, the recording is as splendid as the performance. This Fourth has all the muscularity and punch, yet at the same time is marvelously "sung" (for lack of a better word), and transparent - in German "durchhörbar". One can indeed "hear through" every detail , in wonderful balance. I am captivated. It's as if I hear this work for the very first time. MacMillan's Larghetto is, to my ears, an unfortunate coupling. After this invigorating Brahms Fourth, what follows is like sitting in a room with walls covered with wallpaper full of Gregorian chant, incense coming out of my desktop speakers, while succumbing to sleep. I find this orchestral music underwhelming. There is nothing that really "goes to the heart" , especially after the (in the best sense of the word) overwhelming impression of what has come before. Onward to other tasks at hand, in the happy knowledge there is a marvelous Brahns 4 to listen to again after they are done. All my hats off to the Pittsburgh musicians and their director Manfred Honeck: they've made my day (and will make many more with this one recording alone).
You shouldn't say you heard it on TH-cam LOL. Its practically piracy
@@corgansow7176 Let's say neither according, nor against, but around the law...;-)
A favorite memory of Honeck's explanatory liner notes (which as a spoonfeeder I like): the comment in Beethoven's 7th about choosing to end the second movement with pizzicato strings because if it's good enough for Carlos Kleiber, it should be good enough for anybody.
That's why I dislike his notes. There's another stupid Carlos Kleiber quotation in this batch, as if what that man says matters is some major way.
Will check it out. You can't get enough good Brahms.
Have you heard Honeck's new Beethoven 6? Looking forward to a review...
Not yet,
And he gets the end right, which so many don't
Totally agree about conductors who talk too much… we don’t need a play by play….
My only gripe is about the relatively short playing time. They could have easily filled it by adding Tragic Overture.
Yeah but it's considered a filler so what's the point? I actually love the Tragic Overture. Brahms 4th is only half a disc long. You could easily fit another substantial piece.
@@kanishknishar Such as the 3rd Symphony!
I haven't pulled out this great symphony in a bit, I've been in one of those iconoclastic anti-warhorse moods. I'm one of those boring people who loves the Kleiber 4th, so I'm excited to see how one in modern sound and with a great current conductor compares!
It's better.
I'd also check out Dohnanyi from Cleveland, which I find stupendous.
So Honeck has pulled out of his fussy, futzing, navel-gazing tailspin--and in my favorite Brahms symphony! This is wonderful news. I will have to listen to this immediately.
Honestly it's still fussy and futzing interpretation but this one worked wonders.
This Macmillan piece is, for the lack of a better term, more conservative than the kind of thing he usually composes. I very much like his stuff. The album he did for Chandos that has him conducting his “The Confession of Isobel Gowdie” and “Symphony no. 3 ‘Silence’” is one of my favorite recordings ever. But the Larghetto here, I haven’t fully digested. At least, not yet.
To be honest, I am not sure whether there is anything at all to "fully digest". I have heard it once online here on TH-cam, and I did not experience a single moment while listining to the the music that "caught" me thinking I'd need to give it a further listen. It is "nice" music at best. That being said, I am with you in regards to the Chandos album.
@@ewmbr1164 That's pretty much how I feel about the Larghetto too.The "digest" issue is with regard to how different it is compared to what Macmillan has written before. It's very different and unusually 'conservative'.
Dave: With respect to Honeck's coupling the MacMillan piece it should not be forgotten that both Honeck and MacMillan know each other and are both devout Catholics. So there is a sort of fraternal sympatico perhaps? All best to you.
Not.
I will compare for sure with Brahms' symphony no 4 conducted by Reiner, William Steinberg, Stokowski and Janowski conducting the same orchestra (which has surely different musicians) I guess Honeck has a better sound, but ...
I'll be happy to hear your list of the best (and the worst) Brahms 4 :)
I just returned from a concert tonight with Manfred Honeck conducting the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's First and it was awesome: Nuances, contrasts, humor - everything was on its place in that performance. And seated behind the orchestra allowed for the thrill to see Honecks conducting which includes very sympathetic facial expressions (and his moans and groans as well - in mezzoforte ;-D ).
Honeck grunts pretty loudly in some these recordings, including this one. He's not the only one of course. I guess humming and grunting in recordings doesn't bother you, Dave? Is it unfair to expect that the conductor keeps quiet duing a performance?
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I didn't find it obtrusive here.
Glad to see Maestro Honeck has redeemed himself!
Maybe Johannes Brahms was there during the performance, hovering over and in the proceedings? Not merely Honeck channeling Brahms, but perhaps rather more Brahms leading Honeck and his colleagues onstage? In which case it would be Brahms redeeming Honeck...? ;-)
Hate to disagree with this wonderful review of this impressive but ultimately a bit disappointing (in my opinion) performance (but I guess that's part of the fun in reading/watching reviews). I'm a big fan of Honeck's work in Pittsburgh, but it didn't do it for me this time. I admire Honeck's ability to vary the tempi sensibly, and the magnificent playing throughout, but I find the performance too tense and hasty. It is livelier than one comes to expect in Brahms's 4th, but it comes out as breathless. For example, the development section in the first movement always struck me as some kind of "musical pondering" and I admire performances that gives this feeling of grandeur. In this performance the quiet, relaxed, "philosophical" part went by almost unnoticeably.
Another thing that irritates me in Honeck's recordings (not just this one) is the sudden emphasis of musical lines in the brass. The playing is gorgeous, and it's always nice to hear new details, but sometimes I feel that this emphasis takes away from the main purpose or texture of a passage in favour of some one-note "screams" from the brass. This effect was quite nice in Tchaikovsky, Bruckner and Strauss, but it's less convincing in Brahms. Sometimes the brass buries everything else and the texture is completely lost - for example, in the climax of the fourth movement, when the brass comes in with the passacaglia's theme, the strings texture is completely inaudible due to the deafening brass dynamics.
Overall, I'm still glad that major forces like Honeck and Pittsburgh gave us this new performance, and I hope to see more modern conductors present inspirational (as opposed to mundane) takes on Brahms's music. Even though it wasn't completely successful in my opinion, it was very energetic and the exquisite playing and conducting are defiantly commendable and worth listening for. I just wish it was a little more relaxed at times.
Well reasoned and perfectly fair--your preferences are what they are. Thanks.
I am afraid that my reaction is similar to GuyDerKonig's. I listened to the complete performance on TH-cam streamed through my main stereo system. Marvelously played by the PSO, but "too tense and hasty" to the point of possibly running a bit roughshod over what Brahms intended IMHO. As a comparison I listened to the Reiner/Royal Philharmonic/Chesky (a Wilkinson recording job that is not chopped liver) which is/was beautifully executed with a compelling momentum more in keeping with the tragic intent of the piece. The Honeck/PSO performance is everything Dave described (Thanks, Dave!), but I fear that the sense of excitement is a bit on the superficial side. I do have other Honeck/PSO recordings of which I think very highly. However, YMMV.
@@robertbubeck9194 I think your criticism is a bit generic, frankly, and you just need to take some time and get used to the performance. What strikes me as superficial is your description of the performance after a quick listen via TH-cam streaming. I don't know what you heard, but it's not Honeck that needs to slow down.
Yes, I will give this a go. Brahms is generally a turn off for me, because performances are generally heavy, stodgy affairs. This sounds very interesting.
Do give this 4th a listen. Nothing is boring, heavy, or stodgy to this listener's ears.