The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Fabio Luisi (Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Directorship) recently announced their first album recording of Luisi’s tenure.
Brahms Symphonies No. 1 & 2 will be released on the DSO’s in-house label, DSO Live, on Friday, September 16, 2022. The album is the initial recording of a complete Brahms Symphony cycle that Luisi and the DSO will record.
The recording will be available as a 2CD set as well as a digital download at retailers including Apple Music, Spotify and Idagio.
Both performances were recorded live at Dallas’s Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 was recorded September 16-19, 2021. The performances marked the start of Luisi’s second season as Music Director following a pared-down inaugural season during the pandemic.
Texas Classical Review remarked, “The program offered a strong return to form and the kind of familiar brilliance not heard in the hall since March of last year.” The Second Symphony of Brahms was recorded in a special series of concerts in February 2022 as the orchestra was able to welcome larger audiences to the space. Both recordings were engineered by Soundmirror and Dirk Sobotka.
Luisi was keen to begin his recordings in Dallas with the symphonies of Brahms. He observes:
“I think Brahms is one of the most important composers for a symphony orchestra. Each of the four symphonies is very different from the other. At the start of my tenure as Music Director, these are ideal pieces to begin our collaboration and partnership. I am able to share my ideas of interpretation and craft the kind of sound that I would like from the orchestra. We learn so much from each other by performing the symphonies of Brahms.”
Luisi continues: “To record and release the complete cycle is a statement – it is an artistic statement of who we are as an orchestra now and where we are going as an ensemble. The Dallas Symphony has a rich history and a number of music directors with different styles. With Brahms, we are presenting ourselves in a different way than before. This is our Brahms, and this is how we will shape the Romantic repertoire.”
“It is exciting to share our first album from this new era of the Dallas Symphony,” says Kim Noltemy, Ross Perot President & CEO of the DSO. “The DSO has an incredible recording history going back to the 1940s under Antal Doráti. We look forward to continuing this tradition with the first of a complete Brahms cycle.”
