Brahms: Symphonies Nos.1 & 2 – Kent Nagano

Recipient of the prestigious Brahms Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society in 2024, Kent Nagano, leads the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, of which he was principal conductor from 2015 until 2025, in the first two symphonies by the Hamburg-born composer, recorded in concert.

Completed in 1876, after more than twenty years of hesitation, Brahms’s First Symphony in C minor, Op. 68, bears the full weight of its long gestation. Rooted in late Beethoven — Hans von Bülow famously called it the “Tenth” — it traces a compelling per aspera ad astra journey: from the chromatic, drum-led opening’s Faustian struggle, through a luminous slow movement and buoyant third, to a finale that breaks triumphantly into radiant C major. A critically admired aquired taste, it has remained the choice for connoisseurs.

Composed swiftly during the summer of 1877 at the Wörthersee, Brahms’s Second Symphony in D major, Op. 73, stands in luminous contrast to its brooding predecessor. Freed from the pressure of a symphonic début, Brahms produced a work of natural ease and lyrical abundance: from the horn-launched opening movement to the enchanting third-movement minuet and the exuberant finale, it — in Hanslick’s words — extends its warmth to “connoisseurs and laymen alike.”