Brahms: Complete Symphonies

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra released Symphonies Nos. 1-4 and a large variety of other works by Johannes Brahms between 2009 and 2021. On this box set you will find all of these highly acclaimed Channel Classics recordings. Brahms worked on his First Symphony for many years, a long process driven by extremely diverse musical impulses. The Guardian reviewed Fischer’s recording as “monumental in every sense of the word”. In the Second Symphony, which took him only a summer to compose, Brahms shows us his masterful skill in developing large-scale architecture from the simplest motifs. Iván Fischer refers to the beginning of Brahms’ Third Symphony as being “A life’s story in ten bars – there is no more magnificent opening of a symphony than the first 34 seconds of Brahms’ Third.” Many consider the Fourth Symphony to be the finest of all romantic symphonies. And what a wonderful start: a fragmented melody like a hovering leaf blown up and down by the wind. Iván Fischer: “Never has tenderness been composed more movingly.” BBC Music Magazine gave this recording a Double 5-Star review, noting that “This is an orchestra whose players listen to each other intently.”