Brahms at the Barbican: A Late Style Reconsidered

On a rain-softened evening in late August, the orchestra set out the Fourth Symphony as a series of questions rather than answers. The famous opening was unhurried, almost forensic, each interval turned over as if the score were being read for the first time.

What emerged was a Brahms of restless inquiry. The Andante's horn call drifted above the strings like a memory of another piece, while the scherzo snapped with a violence that the hall's acoustic only sharpened.

The final passacaglia built with terrifying patience. By the last bars, the brass had earned every dissonance, and the silence that followed was the loudest sound of the evening.