Robin Ticciati & SCO - Brahms: The Symphonies - The Times

In the orchestral field, nothing refreshed my ears as much as Robin Ticciati’s moving set of Brahms’s four symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Modest forces are used, which keeps the playing lithe, while the modern instruments are sprinkled with the distinctive “period” sounds of small-bore brass and pungently thwacked timpani. Brahms’s orchestral textures have occasionally been compared to thick porridge, but with Ticciati stirring the pot nothing congeals at all. 

Buy this for . . . people who thought they’d heard everything before