Beethoven's Tenth?
March 18, 2016
Beethoven being a hard act to follow, Brahms took some 20 years before he dared to present a work in the genre that had been so indelibly marked by his predecessor. "You can't imagine how one feels hearing such a titan march behind you," he explained.
After that long spell of writer's block in the genre, he clearly succeeded, leading many to call Brahms's First Symphony "Beethoven's Tenth."
In this concert, the West German Radio Symphony Orchestra performs under its principal conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. As a bonus, he also leads the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a rendition of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. That ever-popular piece is actually an adaptation of a movement from the composer's String Quartet No. 1.
Samuel Barber:
Adagio for Strings
Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Edinburgh
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor
on VIRGIN CLASSICS 259 590-231
Johannes Brahms:
Symphony Nr. 1 in C Minor, op. 68
West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Cologne
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor
Recorded by West German Radio, Cologne (WDR) in the Beethoven Hall, Bonn on September 17, 2015
Rebroadcasting rights: one broadcast before February 7, 2017