The circle is complete: Janowski and the PSO Brahms discs

The final installment of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's three-disc Brahms symphony set is officially out, with conductor Marek Janowski leading the PSO in Symphony No. 4 and a number of Hungarian Dances, taken from live recordings.

The PSO had hoped that the PentaTone disc would be available in time for the opening of its subscription season, but will have them available at Heinz Hall at concerts in the future, along with the two earlier albums.

My comments are going to start sounding like a broken record, which, despite my qualms, these PSO disc certainly are not.

Similar to the other Brahms symphonies in the set, when I heard Symphony No. 4 performed in concert last year, I was underwhelmed by Janowski and impressed by the PSO. The disc, recorded from a combination of three live performances and an extra "patch" session, does come across better than I remember. But no amount of jumping from take to take can make a reading go from solid to spectacular.

Now, if this seems a major rip on Janowski, it's not! He is steeped in this tradition and he is simply presenting it in the way he feels best brings out its essence. In his case that means a less active interpretation -- pushing and pulling of tempo, use of balance, articulation of individual lines. It's just a matter of my opinion that a more active, crafting approach captures the grandeur of this music.

On the other hand, the musicians of the PSO, even on this third disc, display a hunger for getting their sound out on disc. It's still hard to believe we only have one major release from the Jansons years. So the group sounds wonderful -- with gorgeous winds and epic strings, especially in the opening movement. The winds in the second have an uncommon glow to them, too.

With the Hungarian Dances I would've liked to hear more zest, more feeling of improvisation and more sense of the folk origin than Janowski's more straight-forward approach gives.

The bottom line is, this disc, like the others in the set, doesn't break any new ground or even tap fully into the material. But the readings are solid and the sound is honeyed through the superior recording equipment and process of PentaTone. It certainly is a good first Brahms disc to put in your collection. I just recommend eventually trying out a few more recordings to see what else is capable with this extraordinary music.  

The three discs are eventually going to be packaged into a set, but I hope they come up with more interesting cover art. And as to the SACD technology of this recording, I will say again: I do not own a SACD disc player, so I cannot talk to its sound quality (and no self-righteous shots here. I simply can't afford to buy one now, and we review so few SACD CDs it makes no sense for the P-G to get one). But these discs still play on regular CD players and the downloads on computers and MP3 players, and the PentaTone sound quality even on "lowly" CD is plenty sumptuous.