Many if not most listeners would say that period instruments and historically informed performance practice are fine in their place, but many if not most listeners would also say their place does not include repertoire from the latter years of the nineteenth century. For those listeners, this disc of John Eliot Gardiner leading the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir in three works of Brahms -- the Begräbnisgesang, Schicksalslied, and C minor Symphony -- and one of Mendelssohn -- the Mitten wir ...
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Many if not most listeners would say that period instruments and historically informed performance practice are fine in their place, but many if not most listeners would also say their place does not include repertoire from the latter years of the nineteenth century. For those listeners, this disc of John Eliot Gardiner leading the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir in three works of Brahms -- the Begräbnisgesang, Schicksalslied, and C minor Symphony -- and one of Mendelssohn -- the Mitten wir im Leben sind -- will be totally unacceptable. For them, its odd colors, unusual balances, and quirky articulation will seem so utterly unlike the Brahms they know they will categorically reject these performances.That's their choice and their loss. For one thing, no one could doubt that Gardiner's musicians are wholly adept at their tasks. There's not a note wrong or a rhythm misplaced anywhere in these performances. For another, no one would argue that Gardiner and his musicians...
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