Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, 25 May 2008 (Symphony No.1) and 27 September 2008 (Symphony No.2).

This CD captures the impassioned live performances of Brahms’s first two symphonies conducted by the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski. Jurowski came to international attention and recognition on disc in 2005 with two Tchaikovsky releases: Suite No.3 on PentaTone and on the LPO label his debut recording Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, both widely and critically acclaimed releases. As Hugh Canning in The Sunday Times noted ‘Jurowski is proving himself one of the rising podium stars, especially in his native Russian music’.

Brahms took twenty-one years to complete his First Symphony, struggling under the weight of expectation as the worthy successor to Beethoven, renowned for his mastery of the symphony. Though this may have hindered Brahms’s speed, the result was worth waiting for – and the influence of Beethoven within this heroic work is undeniable. His Second Symphony was completed in just a few months and the overall mood is one of pastoral lyricism.