Brahms’ Last Concert review – OAE and Emelyanychev take audience back to 1897
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London This recreation of the final concert that the composer attended – only weeks before his death aged 63 – featured his fourth symphony, Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and Haydn’s symphony no 73. Every period-instrument outfit has its shtick – its own version of what “historically informed performance ” might mean. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment plays music from an increasingly generous historical tranche ( Stravinsky beckons next season ) but always on instruments dating from the same period as the works being performed. Except when they don’t. This performance marking the OAE’s 40th anniversary was not about imagining what certain compositions might have sounded like to their first audiences. Instead, it reproduced the exact programme of a concert held in Vienna on 7 March 1897. The 19th-century concert was the latest instalment in a series run by the eminent conductor Hans Richter , which turned out to be the final concert ever attended by Johannes Brah...
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