Reviews in Brief: Brahms: The Complete Symphonies, Herbert von Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker

This one will be brief: you either take Brahms or leave him, although if you leave him, you're not doing yourself any favors.

Full disclosure: Brahms was my first love in classical music. It all started with a set of 78s that my dad brought home, surplus from the school's music department. It was the Piano Concerto in D Minor and I, all of eight or nine years old, was entranced. No -- make that swept away. I just loved it. Of course, as time went on I accumulated the symphonies, the chamber music, and made a good start on other works.

Brahms is one of those nineteenth-century masters who, in the wrong hands, becomes ponderous and way too serious. Not that his music is not serious, but there is always an undercurrent of lyricism, not to mention flashes of wickedly irreverent humor. Von Karajan manages the symphonies with a touch of lightness -- I almost want to say "vivacity," but that's not quite right. There's an energy here that's all too rare in interpretations of Brahms, and the result is illuminating. The majestic opening of the First Symphony loses none of its majesty, but it gains momentum that drives the music.

Nor does von Karajan miss the drama. It's there in full measure. And the lyricism. And something that I can only call "edge" -- that quality that tells you you're close to the limit, if not at it, and it won't take much at all to push you over. There's a fine-drawn tension in these renderings that is probably partly Brahms, partly von Karajan, and it's only listening to these discs that I realized what had been missing before. Somehow, though, that push never comes, and you stay right on that edge. It's exhilarating. And then the music slips into one of those sweetly lyrical passages that Brahms could do so well (without saccharinity, mind you), and you melt. (When I think how many times I've just blipped on Brahms' slow movements, and then see how they come alive here, it's truly a wonder.)

Von Karajan has to be ranked as one of the twentieth century's great conductors. I like what he did with Beethoven, I am impressed with what he did with Wagner, and I love what he does with Brahms in these recordings. Yes, I'm predisposed to like the music, but I'm also predisposed to be fairly critical. I know this stuff, after all: I've been listening to it since I was nine.

This one is an absolute winner. If you don't have the Brahms symphonies in your collection, find this recording. Hmm -- find it even if you already have them by someone else.

From Deutsche Grammophon, it's a two-disc set priced as a single disc. You can't go wrong.