Classical review: Brahms: Symphonies Nos 2 & 4

The Philharmonia is the latest orchestra to launch its own CD brand, though unlike most of its rivals it has chosen not to create a new label in its own right, but to issue recordings of live performances under the umbrella of Signum Classics. I'm not convinced, though, that these accounts of Brahms symphonies make the most auspicious launch, even though they are conducted by the orchestra's departing music director, Christoph von Dohnanyi. Both performances derive from London concerts last year - the Second from Dohnanyi's first full programme in the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall in June 2007, the Fourth in the Queen Elizabeth Hall four months earlier. They are typical Dohnanyi accounts, tough-edged, no-nonsense, massive and unsentimental, but just falling short of the real intensity that makes his best work compelling. The Second in particular lacks buoyancy, so that the most outgoing of all Brahms symphonies moves at times with almost Brucknerian monumentality. And though the orchestral playing is consistently outstanding, there is no sense of occasion or elan.