Labels such as LSO Live bring altered priorities and fresh perspectives. When did a studio-based company last contemplate recording Brahms's Double Concerto with soloists drawn from within the orchestra? Brahms wrote the work with Joachim and his colleague in the Joachim Quartet, Robert Hausmann, in mind. It has a chamber-music dimension to it, yet it's also a work of real symphonic power. Haitink's accompaniment is superb, allowing the soloists the space for the lyric outpourings at the heart of the work. The sweet-toned Gordan Nikolitch and the burlier-sounding, though endlessly responsive Tim Hugh are perfectly matched, and grow ever closer and more eloquent as the romantic, at times almost operatic, colloquy of the two opening movements unfolds. After which, slippered ease and remembered passion is the order of the day in a sweetly judged reading of the finale. The recording, rich and immediate, brings out the tactile quality of Brahms's writing.
Haitink's 1990 Boston recording of the symphony has a certain Mediterranean glow to it.
In this imposing and beautifully shaded new LSO performance, we return north again with a reading that's weightier and even more cleanly articulated than his 1973 Amsterdam version.

An expressive performance of the Concerto for Violin and Cello from LSO principals Gordan Nikolitch and Tim Hugh. The opening cello statement is rich in tone, and the second movement is full of eloquence, not least from the LSO under Bernard Haitink. It's coupled with an equally splendid performance of the Second Symphony, with some great brass playing at the end of the work.

This is often called the sunniest of Brahms’s four symphonies, but the more you listen to it the more ambiguous and shadowy it seems.