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So this is what Moneux's Brahms is like

10/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Since I am too young to have heard Monteux in the flesh, I have had to take on faith that the man was a great Brahms interpreter. This was because his Brahms discography was, well, spotty. There was of course the Brahms Second (in four different versions: two with San Francisco, one with the Concertebouw, one with the LSO), the Haydn Variations, the Academic Festival Overture, and a number of jobs as an accompanist.
The greatest virtue of the collection is that it fills in most of the gaps. To my mind, the best performance here is the Brahms First: a lithe performance with some very distinctive, loving (if eccentric) phrasing in the inner movements. Also the Violin Concerto is quite good, too; a bit more relaxed and lyrical than the contemporary (excellent) recording with Milstein and Steinberg. The Tragic Overture is solid if not spectacular, and the performance of the Third Symphony is wonderful (although I slightly prefer the tighter one on BBC legends).
As regards the other items on this collection: The Symphonie Fantastique is a beauty, and a bit more flexible in tempo than most of his recordings. The Sibelius Violin Concerto is a wonderful contrast to the taut, driven Heifetz model, although noone will ever mistake Jan Damen for Heifetz: there is a major technical flub at the beginning of the third movement. But that is nothing compared to the flub in the Petroushka: the trumpet fails badly in the Ballerina's dance in the third movement and the ghost of Petroushka. This, combined with the shaky ensemble in the first movement, make this performance painful to listen to. (This is not the first time that I have encountered this Petroushka; it appeared on Music and Arts in the eighties and on CD in the nineties; given the obvious problems, I wonder why it keeps getting a second life. It certainly does not enhance Monteux's reputation, as do the other performances found here."