Teldec have produced a gloriously warm and natural quality of sound for this disc, yet detail emerges with ideal clarity. Such a happy marriage of warmth and clarity serves Dohnanyi's conducting and the superbly accomplished playing of the Cleveland Orchestra admirably, for Dohnanyi's objective style embraces tempos which are often just slightly on the slow side and which thus benefit from a sympathetic ambience of sound, and he takes great care over the orchestral textures.
Yet there is passion too, expressed not in the heat of the moment or in this or that phrase, but in the overall span and shape of each movement—and still more so in the relationship of the movements to one another, so that as in the case of Dohnanyi's account of the First Symphony (Teldec 6 43479; (D 8 43479, 7/87), the first three movements are less impressive as entities than as part of the symphonic structure as a whole, with the finale emerging more clearly than usual as the crown of the work. So if you merely sample this performance you will get an inadequate impression of its stature as a whole, for there is nothing to whet the appetite in terms of seductive detail; indeed, the playing is totally free of any frills or idiosyncrasy. Reviewers have sometimes said that a performance is one to live with, and maybe that implies a worthy and workaday partnership. Dohnanyi's performance is one to live with, but it will provide enduring strength, stimulus and artistry.
It is at once apparent that Carlos Kleiber enjoys a less opulent DG recording than Dohnanyi. His performance is also admirable, but in a different way, for he brings out the drama and lyricism of the score in a much more overt fashion, and the VPO play with more attack than the Clevelanders, with cross-rhythms defined more sharply. Yet Kleiber too preserves the work's shape very clearly, and his use of phrase always keeps the music moving onwards. He propels the last movement dramatically and tightly, so that the work ends in a very exciting climax. The symphony occupies a whole disc in both the Teldec and the DG versions, and that's poor value for CD.
Walter's conducting of the symphony makes me wish again that CBS had chosen the earlier mono New York Philharmonic cycle to perpetuate Walter's Brahms on CD rather than the late stereo recordings. It is clear that by 1960, when he was in his mid-eighties, Walter quite naturally had some better days than others. His conducting here has many insights, to be sure, but there is sluggishness too, and particularly poor accents in the finale, which has one or two sticky moments where the orchestra is obviously lacking proper direction. Yet Walter's account of the Tragic Overture, which begins his disc, is one of the most electric and vital performances ever recorded.
I imagine that most readers will prefer Kleiber's style of conducting in the symphony, but I hope that I have adequately conveyed the particular merits of Dohnanyi's performance.AS