This disc features the “Gewandhaus Sound” at its best–the warm, dark sonority of the strings supplemented by characterful woodwinds and bucolic horns. The only things missing from this performance of the First Serenade are a touch of brilliance from the trumpets (at the counterstatement of the first movement’s opening theme) and a bit more rhythmic definition from the timpani. Otherwise, Brahms playing doesn’t get much better, with Masur displaying none of the stodginess that so often characterized his work. Indeed, his presence is less noteworthy for any obvious interpretive manipulations than for the fact that the music simply seems to play itself, effortlessly, nowhere more so than in the violin-less Second Suite. Here, the Gewandhaus wind section really comes into its own, offering playing at once supremely cultivated and expressive. The recording always was very beautiful (it was made by Deutsche Schallplatten in Quad in 1981), and it sounds lovely here in all formats, with multichannel playback not distractingly weighted toward the rear speakers.
