Brahms: Symphony No1 and Haydn: Symphonies 91 & 92

**** Brahms: Symphony No1 (Channel Classics)

*****Haydn: Symphonies 91 & 92 (Harmonia Mundi, both through Ode Records)

Verdict: Symphonic perennials spring to new and lustrous life

Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer, best known for his fine Mahler recordings with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, now sets his sights on Brahms. And, after opening with Fischer's own piquant arrangement of a Hungarian Dance _ imagine Bartok straying into a gypsy fair _ Brahms' Variations on a theme by Haydn proves an entree to relish.

If you ever felt this composer to be a dour and gruff old chap, then prepare to be converted. Variation 7's graceful Siciliana is the recommended point of entry for sceptics. Here, as elsewhere, the conductor is ingenious in zooming in for the unexpected close-up, focusing on unexpected details, such as rippling woodwind in Variation 3.

Conductor and players do full justice to Brahms' individual way with rhythm, especially in the criss-crossing pulses of Variation 5, while the final Passacaglia is the grandest of Finales.

Brahms' First Symphony has become staple concert repertoire in Auckland _ earlier this year Oleg Caetani took the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra through a performance that I felt was a joint celebration of the composer and the musicians bringing his music to life. And so it is on this CD _ from the intoxicating sweep of the opening bars through to its striding Finale. The Andante sostenuto is particularly telling, although its sumptuous late romantic surface is a little dented by what sound like awkward edits.

Andreas Friesenhagen's booklet essay for Rene Jacobs's new disc of Haydn symphonies argues that these works were avant-garde in their time.

Working with the inspirational Freiburger Barockorchester, Jacobs provides the perfect justification of this proposition.

Jacobs is celebrated in the operatic field, and Haydn's various Allegros are delivered with a sense of expectation. But the slow movements say it all. In the Oxford Symphony's Adagio, a piano weaving through the score anticipates the mood of a Schumann Romance; the Andante of Symphony 91 is deliciously spiked with breathtaking improvisation.

And, as if this were not enough, mezzo Bernarda Fink's impassioned Scena di Berenice might well send you out on the Haydn operatic trail ... with many rewards guaranteed.

William Dart