Please note: the start time of this concert is 7 p.m. (instead of 8:15 p.m.). Ticket buyers will be notified as soon as possible.

Brahms NOS. 2 and 4

Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting

Sir John Eliot Gardiner places Brahms’s symphonies in a long tradition. 

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image: Eduardus Lee
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The finale of Brahms’s Fourth is a glowing series of symphonic variations in the spirit of Bach.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner places Brahms’s symphonies in a long tradition. 

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The finale of Brahms’s Fourth is a glowing series of symphonic variations in the spirit of Bach.

Concert programme

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony No. 2

  • -- interval --

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony No. 4

Performers

Dates and tickets

About this concert

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Concertgebouw Orchestra conclude their Brahms cycle in grandiose fashion with all four symphonies spread over two evenings - in Amsterdam, Hamburg and Luxembourg. John Eliot Gardiner first made a name for himself as a conductor of Baroque music performed on historical instruments. But the vision he developed would soon extend far beyond music of the eighteenth century. Thus, he became a ‘specialist all-rounder’ - which makes him just the man for Brahms’s symphonies. 

It is always clear in Brahms’s music, no matter how romantic, that he is following in a long tradition. His scintillating Second Symphony, for instance, is unmistakably reminiscent of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’. But just listen to the finale of Brahms’s Fourth – a glowing series of symphonic variations. This is pure Brahms, yet in the strictly Baroque form of the passacaglia, in the style of Bach – unsurprisingly, Gardiner’s first and undying love. This music truly transcends the centuries.