Handley: Brahms Serenade No 1 + Haydn Vars. - Chandos ABRD 1302

Jacket NM / LP NM

This handsome LP from Chandos (ABRD 1302, German pressing, blue/black label, DDD stereo) features conductor Vernon Handley and the Ulster Orchestra’s warm and poetic account of Brahms’s Serenade No. 1 in D Major Op. 11. Filling out the disc is their equally potent reading of Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn (“St. Anthony”) Op. 56a, both sumptuously recorded at the Ulster Hall, Belfast on 30/31 January and 11 March 1988 (producer: Brian Couzens / engineers: Ralph Couzens and Janet Middlebrook).

Incidentally, the striking cover art reproduces Barend Cornelis Koekkoek’s “An Extensive Landscape near Kleve”, held at the Bridgeman Art Library, London. There are fine liner notes on the reverse side – in English, German, and French – by Christopher Grier.