Brahms: Symphony No. 2 Münchner Philharmoniker & Zubin Mehta

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73:
• 1 Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: I. Allegro non troppo 16:18
• 2 Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: II. Adagio non troppo – L’istesso tempo, ma grazioso 09:59
• 3 Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: III. Allegretto grazioso, quasi Andantino – Presto, ma non assai 05:26
• 4 Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73: IV. Allegro con spirito 10:18
• Total Runtime 42:01

Info for Brahms: Symphony No. 2

Although Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) was born and raised in the German town of Hamburg, he spent much of his adulthood in Vienna, where he gained a reputation as a bit of an eccentric. An introvert by nature, he often exhibited a carefully cultivated brusque persona that kept all but his closest friends at a distance. Even so, recollections of those who knew him well, as well as numerous letters he penned, reveal a man of wit and tenderness who appreciated all kinds of beauty, whether found in natural surroundings or in the strains of a favorite song.

As a young man, Brahms devoted a great deal of time to studying music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. He also held a certain reverence for the Classical era greats who came before him. Thus, his music finds solid footing in the past. He appreciated the foundation provided by established forms such as theme and variations and sonata-allegro, and he used them to structure many of his instrumental works. At a time when literary-inspired programmatic music called for newer, more adaptable forms and genres, Brahms’s choice to compose sonatas, quartets, and symphonies was interpreted by some as conservative and old-fashioned. Contemporaneous musicologist Wolfgang Sandberger even labelled his music “altdeutsch” (old German). And yet Brahms took those genre and forms and adapted them to his own needs, demonstrating intellectual innovations that lurk beneath the surface. In fact, in 1933 Arnold Schoenberg recognized him as “Brahms, the Progressive.”

Much has been made of the amount of time it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony—more than fourteen years. Some say this was due to enormous pressure put upon him by an article written by mentor Robert Schumann, in which he was declared the German musical successor to Beethoven. Certainly this weighty prophesy was exacerbated by Brahms’s exacting nature, which caused him to revise many of his works and even destroy those he felt were subpar in any way. By the time Brahms finished his first full symphony in 1876, he was already well established as a performing pianist, conductor, and composer. He did not need the symphony to solidify his artistic standing, but its success moved him onto a new level of accomplishment. The event also released something within him, for it was only a year later that he completed a second. The composer found inspiration for his Symphony No. 2 in D Major, op. 73 during a summer vacation at Lake Wörthersee in Pörtschach, Austria. Of his time there, he wrote, “The first day was so beautiful that I absolutely wanted to spend the second here, and the second so beautiful that I stay on for now!”

The Second Symphony is often described as the most melodious and sunny of Brahms’s four, but such statements do not look beyond a luminous veneer. Much like the man himself, the work presents bipolar moments of light and darkness, as well as brooding, wistfulness, contentment, and excitement, all framed in a rich depth of orchestral splendor. Themes in each of the four movements grow organically from a three-note opening fragment heard in the low strings, tying the piece together in cyclic cohesion. The symphony is at once charming, heartfelt, and substantial, fulfilling the promise foreseen by Schumann so many years earlier.

Münchner Philharmoniker
Zubin Mehta, conductor

Zubin Mehta
was born in 1936 in Bombay and received his first musical education under his father’s Mehli Mehta’s guidance who was a noted concert violinist and the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of pre-medical studies in Bombay, he left for Vienna in 1954 where he eventually entered the conducting programme under Hans Swarowsky at the Akademie für Musik. Zubin Mehta won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition in 1958 and was also a prize-winner of the summer academy at Tanglewood. By 1961 he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and has recently celebrated 50 years of musical collaboration with all three ensembles.

Zubin Mehta was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and also assumed the Music Directorship of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962, a post he retained until 1978.

In 1969 he was appointed Music Adviser to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was made Music Director of that orchestra in 1977. In 1981 the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra awarded him the title of Music Director for life. Zubin Mehta has conducted over three thousand concerts with this extraordinary ensemble including tours spanning five continents. Zubin Mehta will end his tenure with the IPO 50 years after his debut in October 2019.

In 1978 he took over the post as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic commencing a tenure lasting 13 years, the longest in the orchestra's history. From 1985 to 2017 he has been chief conductor of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.

Zubin Mehta made his debut as an opera conductor with “Tosca” in Montreal in 1963. Since then he has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala Milano, and the opera houses of Chicago and Florence as well as at the Salzburg Festival. Between 1998 and 2006 he was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In October 2006 he opened the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia and was the President of the annual Festival del Mediterrani in Valencia until June 2014 where he conducted the celebrated “Ring” cycle with the Fura del Baus in coproduction with the Florence opera house. Other “Ring” cycles were completed at the Chicago Opera and the Bavarian State Opera.

Zubin Mehta’s list of awards and honours is extensive and includes the Nikisch-Ring bequeathed to him by Karl Böhm. He is an honorary citizen of both Florence and Tel Aviv and was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997, of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006 and of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien in 2007. The title of “Honorary Conductor” was bestowed to him by the following orchestras: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (2001), Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (2004), Los Angeles Philharmonic (2006), Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (2006), Staatskapelle Berlin (2014) and Bavarian State Orchestra (2006), with whom he performed in Srinagar, Kashmir in September 2013. In 2016 the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples appointed Zubin Mehta as Honorary Music Director and the Los Angeles Philharmonic honoured him in 2019 as Conductor Emeritus.

In October 2008 Zubin Mehta was honoured by the Japanese Imperial Family with the “Praemium Imperiale”. In March 2011 Zubin Mehta received a special distinction, in getting a star on the Hollywood Boulevard. The Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany was bestowed to him in July 2012. The Indian Government honoured him in September 2013 with the “Tagore Award for cultural harmony” which a year earlier was awarded to Ravi Shankar.

Zubin Mehta continues to support the discovery and furtherance of musical talents all over the world. Together with his brother Zarin he is a co-chairman of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay where more than 200 children are educated in Western Classical Music. The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv develops young talent in Israel and is closely related to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as is a new project of teaching young Arab Israelis in the cities of Shwaram and Nazareth with local teachers and members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

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