Customer Reviews

Dennis Brain ~ Strauss - The Two Horn Concertos & Hindemith - Horn Concerto / Sawallisch

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to start saying that the recording of Hindemith concerto is simply impressive. Wonderful. Many composer were astonished by Dennis playing and wrote pieces specifically for him (Hindemith but also Britten, for instance). Also, the recording here is conducted by Hindemith himself, so I think there are no better performances available. About the Strauss concerti, like a previous reviewer i have to say that in my opinion there could exist other great recordings. Performing these concerti I prefer a more aggressive style, less smooth, more "germanic". Ok, Dennis is anyway great, his music, phrases and sound are milestones and examples for all the horn players, but try to compare (just for the sake) other interpretations (my personal favorite is H.Baumann with Gewandaus/Masur, Philips label).

This recording will put any other rendition of Strauss or Hindemith to shame. Brain plays with a lightness, clarity and flow that the masters of today can only dream about. The Hindemith was written for Dennis Brain, and this recording is conducted by the composer himself. The tragedy of Brain's early death is made all the more obvious by recordings like this. If you care about Horn music at all, heckif you care about soloists at all, but this CD.

This is with out doubt a wonderfull example of this work.The musical ideas and phraseing are great.If you want only one recording of this work this is the one , spoken from a horn player.

I was a bit dissapointed by Brain's interpretation of the Strauss concertii but his performance of the Hindemith Concerto was stunning. True, no one can perform that one better than Brain. However, his true forte was in playing the Mozart Horn collection-that is where he shines the most. For a great recording of the Strauss Horn Concerts, I would recommend Gerd Seifert's (retired Principal Horn of the Berlin Philharmonic) rendition of those peices. It just seems that a German-schooled player does a German peice better than an Englishman. Still, this is a great cd if you want the supreme recording of Hindemith's Concerto.

Re-mixed from original record I heard 35 years ago ( and still own 4th platter ) Still O.K. No one makes a French Horn sound like a French Horn as Dennis could. These are arguably the best concerti ever written for horn....Strauss 1 is a delightful exercise in showcasing the beauty and versitility of the modern horn...( horn and flute duet in the middle of a concerto??!! )and is wonderfully pleasant to a great range of music listeners. Strauss 2 is my pick for the greatest horn concerto of all time....but one has to understand French Horn to truly appreciate this masterpiece....or perhaps not! Listen and enjoy!

Charley

Even though I am in love with this CD, I don't really understand why you'd buy it. The same CD was rereleased by EMI Classics but with an additional 3 tracks - Hindemith's Konzertmusik for Brass and Strings. Also, that CD is cheaper, so I would recommend taking that route.

As Dennis' fan, every single CD he left for us worth a 5-stars! As compared with his recording on other media, e.g. cass.tape, I don't really like the "digitized" sound. I wish they could make CD that has the SAME sound recorded on tape. Till then, I will keep all Dennis' CD as my private collection.

If I had to sum up Brain's playing on this cd with only a few choice words they would be clean, effortless, and musically rich. A non horn player listening to this disk could easily wonder how people complain about the horn being such a difficult instrument to play well. Dennis Brain truly pushes all of the difficulties of the horn aside and instead puts only wonderful musicality in its place. Brain was definitely a man in complete control of his instrument, and made it sing like no other. If you're thinking about taking up the horn after listening to this album, don't be fooled- it isn't as gloriously easy as this master virtuoso makes it sound!

Rather than saying that Dennis Brain was the greatest horn player of all time, I prfer to think that he began the age of superstar horn players. In their later recordings of Strauss's two virtuosic concertos, Barry Tuckwell and David Pyatt sound much more exciting than Brain, who also isn't helped by EMI's dated mono sound and the foursquare conducting of Sawallisch. Brain gives us a definitve reading of the Hindemith concerto, but this work hasn't exaclty caught on in the repertoire. I keep Brain's elegeant performances around as a Golden Age memento of a very appealing musician whose early death sealed his lasting reputation.