Brahms: Serenades 1 & 2 (CD review)

Andreas Spering, Capella Augustina. CPO 777 300-2.

You'll recall that because of Beethoven's long shadow, Brahms had a hard time writing the first of his symphonies, and people suppose he rather sneaked up on the subject via the two Serenades of the late 1850s, his "symphonies in disguise" as some people have called them.

Yet he intended the Serenade No. 1 as a small chamber piece for nine instruments before he scored it for a full orchestra. Now, it's the match for any orchestral material the man produced, and it predated the première of his symphonic output by nearly twenty years. The Serenade No. 1 sounds, in fact, like a symphony. However, like most serenades, it's gentle, lyric, and cheerful. And it is a fairly long work of its kind, a little over forty-five minutes, but never less than delightful, the composer stringing together a seemingly never-ending series of charming melodies.

The Serenade No. 2 is shorter, about half the length of No. 1, and slightly less outgoing, with no violins involved; and it, too, has its appeals, not the least of which is its chamber-music quality. Both works, especially the Second Serenade, harken back to a kind of Viennese classicism that works to charming effect.

I mention the chamber-work qualities of both works because the Capella Augustina is a chamber group of about two dozen players who perform on period instruments. So that's one of this recording's claims to fame--that and its delightful phrasing and melodic interpretation. The result, done up in warm, ultrasmooth, highly natural sonics, is a more immediate performance than we're used to, more intimate, and maybe a touch more winsome than most big-scale readings. Certainly, the disc is worth investigating by anyone interested in these two pieces.

JJP