There are many who believe that, if Beethoven wrote the Old Testament of the symphonic literature, then Brahms was the author of the New. Brahms certainly had a rich and complex relationship with tradition and novelty. ‘You don’t know what it’s like, having that giant at my heels’, he ruefully remarked to one who was waiting, as was much of musical Europe at the time, for a First Symphony from a man whom Schumann had already proclaimed as Beethoven’s heir.

In fact the giant referred to by Brahms may indeed have been Schumann and not Beethoven, for the First Symphony contains an embedded thematic narrative that links both composers through Schumann’s wife Clara, and the complex relationship between the three was never to be satisfactorily resolved.

Turbulence is certainly a keynote of these marvellous, dramatic recordings. Antal Doráti may be better known to us now as a Haydn and Stravinsky specialist, or at least pioneer, but the rhythmic spring he insisted upon is at least as germane to symphonies that have often laboured under heavier weights. Indeed his light-footed tempi and incisive articulation are among the reasons why this set, unusually, fits on two CDs.

The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra performs Symphony No.2.

‘This is about the most extrovert performance of Brahms’s First that I have ever heard. Even I, a devotee of Klemperer and Walter, find the blood stirred by Dorati’s crisp, clean-cut attack and guiltily enjoy some of the outrageously fast speeds.’ - Gramophone, April 1961