Quintessentially Viennese

Brahms 4th symphony turned out to be his final one but it doesn't carry the kind of baggage that attaches to some other final symphonies, Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler for instance. Possibly because Brahms didn't write so many, possibly because he wrote his 4th some years before his death, there isn't that same sense of mortality and valediction. It has been called tragic but it is a noble kind of tragedy and far from signalling defeat. I don't belong to the camp that finds Brahms dry and boring and this symphony possibly marks the end of the direct links back to Beethoven and before in Vienna, with Mahler following a much different line. This performance of the 4th is about as good as it gets, by the Vienna Philharmonis conducted by Carlos Kleiber. Kleiber did not make many recordings and had quite a snall repertoire but those works he did undertake, he mastered completely. This is a short cd, the only piece featured is the forty minute symphony. But I don't feel the need for any fillers.