Johannes Brahms Symphony no. 1 in C minor op. 68
Johannes Brahms Symphony no. 3 in F major op. 90
Conductor Daniel Harding

The MCO is very familiar with the symphonies of Johannes Brahms; it has given many successful performances of all four. Now, the MCO and its Principal Conductor Daniel Harding are on tour in Europe and Asia with the complete symphonic cycle for the first time. In Hamburg, the composer’s birthplace, Symphonies 1 and 3 are on the programme.

Johannes Brahms and the musicians of the MCO share a very central point of interest: chamber music. Brahms the pianist was a passionate chamber musician, and this genre occupies a large part of his work as a composer. But that is not all: at their core, Brahms’ orchestral pieces are also chamber music. Nothing is incidental, nothing dispensable. Every individual voice counts, and the themes and motives are most intimately interwoven. Likewise with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, whose very name affirms this. Each member of the MCO lives the chamber music style of playing – listening to and reacting to one another, taking responsibility and bringing their own creativity into play – even when great symphonies are on the program.

Symphony No. 1
„I will never compose a symphony! You have no notion of how it discourages me, whenever I here this giant marching behind me“, complained Brahms in a letter to his friend, the conductor Hermann Levi. The composer, acutely self-critical, found the nine symphonies of Beethoven to be an overwhelming model. Only in his forty-third year did Brahms succeed – after many aborted attempts and almost fifteen years of work – in finishing his first symphony. It is indeed stamped with Beethoven’s influence, or rather, with the mark of Brahms’ conflicted position on Beethoven. Not only does this appear in the orchestral instrumentation, in the chronological dimensions, and in the choice of one of Beethoven’s most oft-used keys, C-Minor, but also in thematic allusions. As in Beethoven’s C-Minor Symphony (No. 5), Brahms’ First Symphony follows the idea, „From darkness into the light.“ The world premiere in Karlsruhe was a success, and only a few weeks later the work was being celebrated in Vienna.

Symphony No. 3
The third symphony, in F-Major, is defined by forceful energy. A fluctuation between major and minor is characteristic of the entire symphony. The composer Antonín Dvorák belonged to the early admirers of the work: „There is a temper in it, that one doesn’t often find with Brahms!“ he wrote to his publisher Fritz Simrock. „What glorious melodies one finds there! It’s pure love and one’s heart opens to it.“

An Abundance of Changing Landscapes of the Soul - MCO Brahms Cycle at the Philharmonie Essen.

Kindly supported by Bosch – since 100 years in Japan.