In their first Warner Classics release of symphonic repertoire, the players of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Michael Sanderling perform the four Brahms Symphonies and Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor.
Sanderling and the orchestra have already established a presence on the Warner Classics and Erato labels, partnering trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin-Vary on her first album of trumpet concertos and cellist Edgar Moreau on his album Transmission. As it happens, it was as a cellist that Berlin-born Michael Sanderling first made his reputation, becoming a principal in Leipzig’s hallowed Gewandhausorchester at the age of just 20.
Founded in 1805, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (Luzerner Sinfonieorchester) is Switzerland’s oldest orchestra and the resident orchestra at Lucerne’s superb lakeside concert hall, the KKL. There is an important personal connection between Brahms and Lucerne: the composer visited the city twice, once, in the company of Clara Schumann, after Robert Schumann’s death, and once with his father.
“The location of Lucerne, Switzerland’s central city, creates a link with Brahms,” says Michael Sanderling, who was previously Chief Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. “Its proximity to the mountains, its position on beautiful Lake Lucerne … I can hear that in Brahms’ symphonic music. I can hear his love for nature … the purity of the air. And in his Symphony No 1, I think we can all hear the sound of the alphorn, which Brahms heard for the first time in Switzerland and which inspired the gorgeous theme [of its fourth movement].
“This is why it has been such a special joy for the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and for me to record the four Brahms Symphonies and Schoenberg’s orchestration of the Piano Quartet, here in Lucerne, with that sense of Brahms’ emotions.
“I love working with this orchestra, whose players work so quickly, so intelligently, so willingly and with so much feeling. For any orchestra a recording of the Brahms Symphonies is a milestone, something that should happen at least once in its history.”
Sanderling feels that, more than 200 years into its existence, new vistas, and especially the large-scale symphonic repertoire of late Romanticism, are opening up for the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. He and the players are looking forward to further voyages of discovery.
