Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer’s own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

Of Brahms' symphonies, his Symphony No. 2 in D major is the sunniest, a vibrant and rhythmically supple work overflowing with ardent melodies, joyful syncopations, and robust brass writing. Yet for all its brightness, Brahms' orchestration can be quite problematic, since his frequent doublings of winds and strings and scoring for full sections are in constant need of a conductor's subtle refinements. Hans Vonk and the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra give the work a rich and warm performance, with great attention paid to the pacing and shaping of movements. However, the orchestral sound is rather dense, and there is little sense of graded dynamics or breathing room around the orchestra.

By the time he made these celebrated recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the early 1960s, Otto Klemperer was a grand old man of conducting. Christa Ludwig, by contrast, was in the glowing early prime of her extraordinary career, which encompassed repertoire for both mezzo-soprano and soprano. “Klemperer was marvellous for the singing,” she later said, “because he did nothing against the composer.” This collection shows the fruits of their collaboration in Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms and Mahler.

These recordings of live LPO concerts at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall between 2008 and 2011. The CD release of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (February 2010), received great critical acclaim including BBC Music Magazine's Disc of the Month' and the recommended version of Symphony No. 2 by BBC Radio 3's Building a Library'. The CD release of Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 was also praised in the press, with Gramophone describing the LPO as London's finest Brahms orchestra' and The Financial Times writing that Jurowski marries the best of tradition with the best of modern practice'.

There were occasions during the three decades when the LP record ruled supreme - from the 1950s to the 1970s - when the chemistry between an orchestra, its conductor and their record company combined to work a magic that the commitment of long-term recording contracts quite often made possible. Karajan and the Philharmonia; Ansermet and the Suisse Romande; Dorati and the Minneapolis; Münch and the Boston Symphony, Cluytens and the Paris Conservatoire and Previn and the London Symphony are all prime examples of such collaborations. All of these produced recorded performances that are as fine today as they ever were and are all well-represented in the current CD catalogues. Until now there has been one successful recording collaboration that seems almost to have slipped under the radar: the Pittsburgh Symphony, William Steinberg and the Capitol Records producer, Richard C. Jones.

There are so many variables affecting a recording of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem that the chances are almost zero that any one conductor, orchestra, couple of soloists, and chorus (not to mention the sound crew) will get everything, or even most everything, “right” at a given outing. And of course, “right” is a matter of personal taste: after all, this is a major work that most choral music fans and practitioners, both amateur and professional, know, have heard on recordings, and likely have sung—at the very least the fourth-movement chorus “Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen”. They have an idea of how the piece is supposed to go, from the particular sound and interpretive style of the soloists to the size of the chorus and character of the singing and orchestral playing.

The visiting Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra opened its concert at the 1967 Vienna Festival with a high-octane performance of Dvorák’s patriotic overture The Hussites. In the Brahms Violin Concerto, the elegant soloist Henry Szeryng and the conductor Rafael Kubelík entered into a musical dialogue that was both subtly sensitive and quick-witted. This release has been digitally mastered from the original tapes for optimal sound quality, and is sure to delight a whole new generation of listeners.

This recording represents a slice of a vanished world: pianist Nelly Akopian-Tamarina studied in Moscow in the 1950s and 1960s, and her teacher was Alexander Goldenweiser, a friend of Scriabin and Rachmaninov, and a carrier of traditions stretching well back into the 19th century. Her career was interrupted by disfavor with Soviet authorities in the 1970s, but has been resumed in her old age with compelling results.

The appearance in 1856 of a new edition of a German folksong anthology considered by Brahms to be indiscriminately compiled provoked him to bring out a collection of his own in 1894. His priorities lay not with authenticity; his own selections were governed by the sheer musical and aesthetic quality of the raw material and the opportunities it afforded for imaginative arrangement. So, in his Deutsche Volkslieder, Brahms practised the fine art of assimilation, blurring the lines between folksong and artsong in a way not at all dissimilar to what Britten would be doing for English folksong little more than 50 years later. Images and ambient sounds from the original folksongs find their way into Brahms’s ever-inventive piano accompaniments.

Mainstream performances of the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms tend to reflect the interpretive standards of the mid-20th century – slow to moderate tempos, a large orchestra with a homogenized ensemble blend, and consistently serious moods – which have contributed to the similarities of sound and expression in many modern sets. In contrast, Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra present a fresh take on the symphonies, offering unusually brisk tempos, a lean ensemble sound with distinctive tone colors, and a sense of vitality and propulsion that is more typical of historically informed performance practice.

Six years after their acclaimed disc devoted to Mendelssohn's works for cello and piano, Christian Poltera and Ronald Brautigam now tackle the two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms, two central works in the repertoire, unquestionably the most important since those by Beethoven. The First Cello Sonata was composed between 1862 and 1865 when Brahms was in his thirties. He seemed intent on showcasing the lyricism of an instrument that is often compared to the human voice.

Rudolf Buchbinder, the doyen of Austrian pianists, plays Max Reger’s rarely heard, lovingly crafted transcriptions of his idol Johannes Brahms’s most beautiful lieder, about which Reger said: “In the case of such masterpieces, any embellishment and any attempt to introduce a note of brilliance would be an unheard-of act of vandalism. I mean to adopt a different approach by bringing out the vocal line and, where possible, retaining the original accompaniment in the most faithful way that I can!”

The star pianist Yuja Wang releases her latest album with the live recording of her concert from April 2022 at the Vienna Konzerthaus. The eclectic program displays once more Wang’s fiery virtuosity, musical imagination and mature musicality in both lesser known and recognised masterpieces by Albéniz, Beethoven, Ligeti and Scriabin. The pianist commented on the selection: “I believe that every program should have its own life and reflect my current feelings.”

The Danish choir under Stefan Parkman is splendid in this repertory. Their almost flawless intonation and ensemble make easy work of Brahms's thick textures and rich harmony….An embarrassment of riches–one you should take advantage of.