Brahms/Schoenberg
Harmonia Mundi
Pairing Brahms’s Fourth Symphony with Schoenberg’s orchestral Variations proves fascinating. But neither performance by Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie- Orchester Berlin is top class. The Brahms highlight is the muted slow movement; the rest is overstrenuous and undernourished. The Schoenberg needs clearer sound and sharper rhythms: too much horizontal lyricism here, not enough vertical precision.
GEOFF BROWN