Composer: Johannes Brahms
Performer: Daniel Barenboim, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Lynn Harrell
Orchestra: New York Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Zubin Mehta
Number of Discs: 8
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Sony
Catalogue: 88875123012
Release: 2016
Size: 1.5 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
CD 01
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
01. I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro
02. II. Andante sostenuto
03. III. Un poco Allegretto e grazioso
04. IV. Adagio – Più Andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio – Più Allegro
CD 02
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73
01. I. Allegro non troppo
02. II. Adagio non troppo – L’istesso tempo, ma grazioso
03. III. Allegretto grazioso (Quasi Andantino) – Presto ma non assai
04. IV. Allegro con spirito
CD 03
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90
01. I. Allegro con brio
02. II. Andante
03. III. Poco Allegretto
04. IV. Allegro
Variations on a theme by Haydn for orchestra, Op. 56a ‘St Anthony Variations’
05. Thema – Chorale St. Antoni – Andante
06. Variation I – Poco piu animato
07. Variation II – Più vivace
08. Variation III – Con moto
09. Variation IV – Andante con moto
10. Variation V – Vivace
11. Variation VI – Vivace
12. Variation VII – Grazioso
13. Variation VIII – Presto non troppo
14. Finale – Andante
CD 04
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
01. I. Allegro non troppo
02. II. Andante moderato
03. III. Allegro giocoso – Poco meno presto
04. IV. Allegro energico e passionato – Più Allegro
CD 05
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
01. I. Maestoso – Poco più moderato
02. II. Adagio
03. III. Rondo – Allegro non troppo
CD 06
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83
01. I. Allegro non troppo
02. II. Allegro appassionato
03. III. Andante – Più Adagio – Tempo I
04. IV. Allegretto grazioso – Un poco più presto
CD 07
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
01. I. Allegro non troppo
02. II. Adagio
03. III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace – Poco più presto
CD 08
Double Concerto for Violin & Cello in A minor, Op. 102
01. I. Allegro
02. II. Andante
03. III. Vivace non troppo
04. Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80
Celebrating Zubin Mehta, long-term Music Director of the New York Philharmonic.
First CD release of Mehta’s Brahms symphony cycle of 1979–1982.
All Brahms’s concertos recorded with Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern and Lynn Harrell.
8-CD edition with Symphonies 1–4, Haydn Variations and Academic Festival Overture newly remastered from the original tapes.
Facsimile LP sleeves and labels, booklet with full discographical notes.
“I became a conductor”, Zubin Mehta revealed in his autobiography, “because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms’s four symphonies and Richard Strauss’s tone poems.” To celebrate the maestro’s 80th birthday in 2016, Sony Classical is pleased to present the first-ever release on CD of Mehta’s cycle, made in the late 1970s and early 80s with the New York Philharmonic.
Born in Bombay in 1936, Zubin Mehta was just 18 when he went to Vienna – the adopted home of Brahms – and became a pupil of the Music Academy’s legendary conducting teacher Hans Swarowsky. In 1958 he won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition as well as a prize at Tanglewood, and within three years he had already conducted the Philharmonic orchestras of Vienna, Berlin and Israel. In 1978 Mehta succeeded Pierre Boulez as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, commencing a tenure that lasted 13 years, still the longest in the history of America’s oldest orchestra.
Right from the start, Mehta’s programming in New York centered on Viennese works, repertoire from that city where, in his own words, he had experienced his “musical coming-of-age”. In the first few years of his music directorship, Mehta conducted the Philharmonic in all of the Brahms symphonies, “Haydn” Variations and Academic Festival Overture and recorded them for American Columbia. Gramophone’s reviewer lauded Mehta’s “superior degree of orchestral control”.
During the same period, with his close friends and collaborators Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern and Lynn Harrell, Mehta and his New York orchestra recorded all the Brahms concertos. After hearing Barenboim and Mehta in the First Piano Concerto in concert in February 1979, when this recording was made, the New York Times wrote that “conductor and pianist merged in the opening movement into one indivisible entity, so that one’s attention was concentrated on the power and beauty of this familiar music in a way that rarely happens … The Adagio was one long, unbroken song, filled with exquisite interplay among the piano and orchestral soloists.”
Zubin Mehta’s Brahms cycle appeared on LP between 1979 and 1984, but it has never been issued before now on CD. In fact, the recording of Symphony No. 1 – probably for contractual reasons (Decca had recently issued an LP of the First with Mehta conducting the Vienna Philharmonic) – was not released on LP at all. Needless to add, every item in this 8-CD box – featuring facsimile LP sleeves and labels, plus full discographical notes – has been newly remastered from the original tapes.