Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 by Stavanger Symphony Orchestra

Johannes Brahms

Stavanger Symphony Orchestra | Jan Willem de Vriend

Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2

Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917200867
Catnr: CC 720086
Release date: 06 March 2026
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917200867

Catalogue number
CC 720086

Release date
06 March 2026

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Johannes Brahms's first two symphonies reveal two contrasting sides of a musical genius. His First Symphony, completed after years of struggle under the towering shadow of Beethoven, is a dramatic journey from darkness and uncertainty to hard-won triumph. The Second Symphony, composed during an idyllic summer in the Austrian countryside, offers a striking contrast: radiant, lyrical and filled with warmth, pastoral beauty and an irresistible sense of joy. Together, these masterpieces capture the extraordinary emotional depth and expressive richness of Brahms's orchestral imagination.

Following their acclaimed recordings of Schumann's complete symphonies, Jan Willem de Vriend and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra continue their exploration of Romantic music through a historically informed approach. With a fresh perspective on orchestral colours, phrasing and nineteenth-century performance traditions, they breathe new life into Brahms's familiar masterpieces, revealing their remarkable vitality, intimacy and dramatic power. An invitation to rediscover two symphonic landmarks with fresh ears.

Artist(s)

Stavanger Symphony Orchestra

Located on Norway’s southwest coast, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra (SSO) performs in Stavanger Concert Hall, regarded as one of the finest acoustic venues in Europe. Andris Poga was the orchestra’s Chief Conductor from 21/22 to 25/26. Recent guest conductors have included Karina Canellakis, Pablo Heras-Casado, James Gaffigan, Dalia Stasevska, Fabien Gabel, Jan Willem de Vriend, and Andrew Manze. The orchestra has released a substantial catalogue under SSO Recordings, in addition to acclaimed albums of Scandinavian music for BIS and baroque repertoire with Fabio Biondi for Naïve. SSO has toured in Japan, the United States, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. Early music has been a key artistic pillar for the orchestra. Frans Brüggen served as Artistic Director for Early Music from 1990–1997, followed...

Located on Norway’s southwest coast, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra (SSO) performs in Stavanger Concert Hall, regarded as one of the finest acoustic venues in Europe.

Andris Poga was the orchestra’s Chief Conductor from 21/22 to 25/26. Recent guest conductors have included Karina Canellakis, Pablo Heras-Casado, James Gaffigan, Dalia Stasevska, Fabien Gabel, Jan Willem de Vriend, and Andrew Manze.

The orchestra has released a substantial catalogue under SSO Recordings, in addition to acclaimed albums of Scandinavian music for BIS and baroque repertoire with Fabio Biondi for Naïve. SSO has toured in Japan, the United States, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. Early music has been a key artistic pillar for the orchestra. Frans Brüggen served as Artistic Director for Early Music from 1990–1997, followed by Philippe Herreweghe (2000–2004) and Fabio Biondi (2006–2016).

The orchestra was nominated for a Spellemann Award in 2018 and for a Grammy Award in 2020, for Gisle Kverndokk’s Symphonic Dances.

Founded in 1938, the orchestra today consists of 85 musicians representing 24 nationalities.

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Jan Willem de Vriend (conductor)

Jan Willem de Vriend, designated “a godsend from the Netherlands” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, is driven by the pioneering spirit of historically informed perfomance practice. As music director of the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, which he founded in 1982, he specialised in repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, reviving a wealth of rarely heard works through historically informed performances on modern instruments, praised by Gramophone magazine for their “technical finesse and a lively feeling for characterization”. An award-winner for his creative contribution to classical music, Jan Willem de Vriend has more than 50,000 followers on Spotify and is in demand as a conductor around the world, appearing regularly with such orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest...

Jan Willem de Vriend, designated “a godsend from the Netherlands” by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, is driven by the pioneering spirit of historically informed perfomance practice. As music director of the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, which he founded in 1982, he specialised in repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, reviving a wealth of rarely heard works through historically informed performances on modern instruments, praised by Gramophone magazine for their “technical finesse and a lively feeling for characterization”.
An award-winner for his creative contribution to classical music, Jan Willem de Vriend has more than 50,000 followers on Spotify and is in demand as a conductor around the world, appearing regularly with such orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest Den Haag, Belgian National Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre National de Lyon, Bergen Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Netherlands Radio and Hessischer Rundfunk (Frankfurt Radio Symphony), Melbourne Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He is Principal Conductor Designate of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Lille, and former Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and the Brabant Orchestra.
For the Challenge Classics label, de Vriend and the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra have recorded the complete Mendelssohn symphonies and all Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos with, among others, pianist Hannes Minnaar and violinist Liza Ferschtman. De Vriend’s interpretation of the Symphony No 7 prompted Classic FM to admire “a bounding flair that does real justice to the composer’s capacity for joy”. A further landmark of his recorded catalogue is his complete recording of the Schubert symphonies with the Residentie Orkest Den Haag.
De Vriend’s collaborative spirit is equally evident in his work for the stage, notably with opera director Eva Buchmann and Combattimento Consort Amsterdam. In addition to works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Handel and Telemann, their productions in Europe and the USA have included staged versions of Bach’s ‘Hunting’ and ‘Coffee’ Cantatas at the Bachfest Leipzig, and operas by Mozart, Rossini, Verdi and Cherubini, among them Mozart’s Don Giovanni und Rossini’s La gazzetta, both toured in Switzerland. De Vriend has also conducted operatic productions in Amsterdam (with the Nederlandse Reisopera), Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lucerne, Schwetzingen and Bergen.

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Composer(s)

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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