It’s really a bit hard to take seriously: the name of the orchestra (it’s French!, even if I Anglicize it here), the label (it’s Latin!), and the whole authenticity business laid out in excruciating detail in the booklet interview with John Eliot Gardiner (it’s Nonsense!). Here’s the bottom line: aside from a few trivial improvements in instrument construction, the period-instrument folks have nothing to teach us about Brahms. His symphonies were written at the same time that most of today’s orchestras were established. We are only a single generation away from conductors who either knew him or were trained by those who did. These works form part of the active, living tradition of today’s orchestras. So to Gardiner and all those like him I say: “Shut up and just play the music!”
This advice is all the more salient when, as here, the results are actually quite respectable. Gardiner offers an exciting, mostly well-judged reading when he isn’t being too “authentic”. The first movement features a nicely propulsive tempo, with typically clean rhythms and textures. The horns do a splendid job at the start of the introduction, and the lead-in to the recapitulation is very exciting. The andante flows well, compromised only by a thin and characterless solo violin. Gardiner’s third movement lacks a certain charm. His tempo seems fractionally fast and the trumpets need more presence at the climax of the trio section; but the finale goes very well indeed, with memorable work from the solo horn (or is it a real alphorn?) and plenty of energy once the movement proper gets going. Gardiner would attribute his welcome flexibility of tempo to authentic practice, and so it is. You can hear something similar at any normal subscription concert.
If anything, the choral items are even finer. The highlight is a sensitively sung rendition of the Schicksalslied. I find the other two works not among the best offerings by either composer, but they certainly make unusual couplings and choral music collectors may well want them. The live sonics, from the Royal Festival Hall and Salle Pleyel, are remarkably consistent and very good, with extremely quiet audiences in both cases. It’s time that period-performance people stopped hiding behind their pseudo-scholarship and simply let their interpretive work stand or fall on its own merits. Gardiner certainly can withstand the scrutiny.
