Between 1981 and 1984, Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms's
orchestral works with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to honor the 150th
anniversary of the composer's birth in 1983. Today, the cycle is considered
as a landmark in the interpretation of Brahms' music. For Bernstein, Brahms
was "a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb", but also
a "North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian,
Carpathian and gypsy passions". Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein
and the Vienna Philharmonic have underscored both the classicism and
romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms's
music. The venue was Vienna's Musikvereinssaal, where two of Brahms's
symphonies were premiered and where Brahms himself conducted. For the
concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms
interpreters of the time: the violinist Gidon Kremer, the cellist Misha
Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman.
