Daniel Barenboim’s Brahms cycle does not match the excellence of his Beethoven, although there’s certainly nothing especially wrong with it. He has the Chicago Symphony playing beautifully, making warm, well-groomed sounds. But there’s a certain heaviness, an excessive thickness to the sonority very evident in the first movements of both symphonies that, when combined with the conductor’s refusal to whip up excitement at the climaxes and especially in the two finales, keeps the music from fulfilling its dramatic potential. You come away from these performances feeling as though you’ve overindulged in some particularly rich gourmet treat. It’s not a terrible fault, particularly when you’re dealing with playing at this level of excellence, and it wouldn’t really matter if there wasn’t so much excellent competition, including a sensational Brahms cycle from Cleveland (with Dohnanyi) on Teldec’s own bargain label Ultima. Certainly if you collect Barenboim you won’t be disappointed, but you can do better.
