Is another cycle of the symphonies of
Johannes Brahms really necessary? No, not really: with recordings of performances from every great conductor of the past century readily available, who really needs another
Brahms cycle? No one, really: with cycles by
Abbado,
Böhm,
Celibidache,
Dohnányi,
Eschenbach, and
Furtwängler, among dozens of others on the shelves, who really needs a cycle by
Otmar Suitner leading the
Staatskapelle Berlin?
Only anyone who really loves
Brahms' symphonies, that's who.
Suitner spent most of his career on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, and his recordings were only intermittently available on the Western side. But, as these recordings from the mid-'80s reveal,
Suitner was not only a supremely skilled conductor, he had something to say about
Brahms' symphonies, something which, amazingly enough, no one else ever said. For
Suitner,
Brahms was less the heir of
Beethoven than the heir of
Schumann and
Mendelssohn, less a titan wrestling with demons than a Romantic singing songs of love and nature and fate. With the superlative playing of the
Staatskapelle Berlin,
Suitner's
Brahms is strong but supple, stern but sensitive, powerful but poetic, and, above all, warm-hearted. While no one would claim that
Suitner's cycle supplants any of dozens of others, there is always room on the shelf for a great
Brahms cycle. Berlin Classics' mid-'80s sound is remarkably clear and deep.