BRAHMS SYMPHONY NO. 3

A Late-Romantic work with a possible romantic background…

In the evolution of Brahms' symphonic oeuvre, his penultimate symphony unites the brightness of the Second with the monumentality of the Fourth. Strangely enough, even though the Third reaches several glorious outpourings of massed winds and strings, the work ends in pianissimo, leaving the listener slightly taken aback, reflective rather than jubilant. Yet this did not prevent the conductor of the Vienna world premiere in 1883, Hans Richter, from calling it the "Heroic Symphony."

Brahms usually spent his summers in the Austrian countryside, composing. But in 1883, however, he spent it in Wiesbaden, where he wrote most of the Third Symphony. Seeing that Wiesbaden was the home of Hermine Spiess, a much younger woman and gifted interpreter of Brahms' songs, it is possible that he chose Wiesbaden for sentimental purposes… The warmth and profound emotional content of the symphony possibly reflects the elation of the ageing composer.

"Immaculate and perfectly engineered" proclaimed Britain's The Guardian after a Cleveland Orchestra Proms concert in which Franz Welser-Möst performed the Third. Vienna's prestigious daily Die Presse applauded the concert featured here and recorded at Vienna's spectacular Golden Hall of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde as "structurally highlighted, vividly sketched details modeled with great subtlety" – details that perhaps reminded Brahms of a talented young lady from Wiesbaden…