Fischer/Welser-Most - Johannes Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 4

The Cleveland Orchestra is the 'aristocrat among American orchestras' (The Telegraph) and it�s sovereign, Franz Welser-M�st, rules his subjects with a velvet glove. Indeed, velvet and silk keep show ing up in descriptions of the Clevelanders� sound under its principal conductor. It is Welser-M� st�s nimble alternation between smoothness and a sound that�s as 'sharp-edged as a skyscraper' (The Telegraph after the Brahms� First at the orchestra�s London Proms concert). That keeps the ensemble and the audience figuratively on its toes. Brahms� Fourth and last Symphony could be said to glow with autumnal colours. Endowed with a strong undercurrent of subdued melancholy, it seems to pine for an irretrievable past. Franz Welser-M�st offers a 'lean, propulsive performance' (The Plain Dealer) of this work with his highly concentrated Cleveland Orchestra. The swift pace of the symphony in Welser-M�st�s hands reflects the conductor�s quest for a distinctive, far-from-the-mainstream interpretation. Written nearly contemporaneously in the late 1870s, Johannes Brahms� rousing Academic Festival Overture and Violin Concerto Op. 77 bear witness to a composer at the height of his abilities, a mature master of large-scale masterpieces. The Violin Concerto demands extreme technical proficiency. As if to exemplify this, violinist Julia Fischer gears herself from the very start of this emotionally searing work to maintaining a restrained yet passionate tone.