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RE: Brahms' 2nd Symphony, so breezy and beautiful; but I'm so tired of it. Will Ansermet come to the rescue?

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In Reply to: RE: Brahms' 2nd Symphony, so breezy and beautiful; but I'm so tired of it. Will Ansermet come to the rescue? posted by jdaniel@jps.net on May 22, 2015 at 08:32:43

Finally had a chance to dig through my collection, and found and played Ansermet's Brahms 1st. Does the elegance, precision and clarity of the Ansermet approach work with Brahms?
As unBrahmsian as he seems, to me the answer is a qualified yes. Some of the raw dramatic impact you generally expect from that symphony is admittedly missing, but he's still cool, calculated and convincing.
And I suppose the original LPs might be somewhat rare, but the Stereo Treasury Series reissues seem plentiful enough on ebay.
Edit: I also have the Ansermet Conducts Wagner LP somewhere. Now, there's a strange pairing. ;)

Edits: 05/22/15

Follow Ups:

Glad you liked his Brahms 1st. I assumed its more stormy and "Wagnerian" quality wouldn't have suited him - jdaniel@jps.net 07:31:54 05/23/15 (2)
Beethoven's 6th OTOH...definitely going to seek that one out. And the Brahms 1st, but will be hard to ween me from Furt and the Berlin....
- Don't be weened. - rbolaw 08:40:10 05/23/15 (1)
  You're allowed to listen to more than one version, you know. As a very young (pre-teen) kid listening to classical radio, it was almost a joke how everything they played was by Ansermet and the OSR. Now the opposite is true, and he's almost forgotten except for the connoisseurs.
  
  I have his Beethoven symphonies 1 and 8 on my iPod, downloaded from somewhere, both good. I don't have his no. 6, but I do have a good no. 6 from Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony, surprisingly gentle and lyrical.
  - No worries : ) His performances often just feel so "alive." Only his Debussy fails to satisfy me, with one - jdaniel@jps.net 08:52:26 05/23/15 (0)
    huge exception: Ansermet's Images for Orchestra. *What* a party atmosphere he conjures for the last mov't of Iberia! Otherwise I prefer a more luminous/heavy string sound for Debussy and a little bit more of an "erotic" turn of phrase, if that makes sense. Ansermet tends to be very straight-forward/just the facts, IMHO.
    
    So strange though: Ravel sounds more "erotic" and "luminous" with *less* string weight, to me anyway.

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