I enjoyed this Brahms cycle. Fortunately, Asher Fish is not a member of the “Brahms Lite” Chapter or a Chailly/Gardiner – style speed merchant. What’s more, unlike the hapless, battle-jacketed George W Bush standing on the deck of that aircraft carrier, under a sign proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, Asher Fisch really has accomplished his “mission” to transform the West Australian Symphony Orchestra from merely good into a potentially great instrument, on the strength of theses performances at least. It plays with confidence, sheen and finesse. The buoyant galumphing rhythm of the opening movement of the First Symphony is just right (no repeat observed – presumably because of the plan to fit this and the Second Symphony on a single CD) without diminishing the inherent drama.

The second and third movements are really like lightly scored serenade movements buffering two huge epic book-ends, but it’s here the quality of the woodwind phrasing (and the depth of the orchestra’s talent) becomes apparent. This is warmly shaped, with oboe and clarinet solos notable but also a lovely extended reverie by concertmaster Jackson duetting with horns. The Finale, with its deliberately tentative opening, is always problematic but Fisch guides his players through treacherous shoals until the liberation of “the theme” and on to the heroic coda, ending in a blaze of glory without sounding frenetic.

After the agonised gestation period of the First Symphony, the Second comes relatively effortlessly. Here, Fisch and the orchestra luxuriate in the expansive confidence of the music by a composer at the zenith of his inspiration and match it with their own. There are lovely piquant exchanges between the woodwind and the sensation of hearing the players in full exuberant cry in the Finale, Brahms most “unbuttoned” symphonic moment, is exhilarating.

The third symphony, often thought to be as problematical for conductors to conduct as the First was for Brahms to compose, is, for me, the most “interesting”. The third movement sounds more radiant and autumnal than usual and the tricky tempo variations in the finale, for once, work.

The Fourth Symphony exists to rebut the notion that Brahms, of all great composers, was the least progressive. Schoenberg certainly didn’t agree! Where did he derive the tango-like rhythm of the first movement, sounding here more sinuous and seductive than ever? Fisch and his players maintain the manic helter-skelter of the only true symphonic scherzo Brahms wrote and sustain the gravity tension and drama of the concluding passacaglia brilliantly. All in all, a distinguished achievement. 

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