Though these days we generally hear the Brahms symphonies performed by a full-sized symphony orchestra of 70 or 80 players, the composer himself is said to have preferred smaller forces. The orchestra in Karlsruhe, which introduced his First Symphony, had 49 players, the Meiningen Court Orchestra, responsible for the premiere of the Fourth, numbered 48. Thomas Dausgaard recorded the four symphonies with a band of that size for BIS, and now Adam Fischer has followed his example; the exact number of players he uses isn’t given in the sleeve notes, but a photograph of the Danish Chamber Orchestra suggests there are fewer than 50 of them, and certainly these constantly fascinating performances demonstrate that, even in Brahms, less can mean a lot more.
