Symphony No 2 - Johannes Brahms - David Briggs at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York.

Symphony No 2 in D Major, Opus 73 - Johannes Brahms, transcribed by David Briggs (2024), performed by David Briggs at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York.

This wondrous symphony has been deep in my musical psyche since I got to know it as a 15-year old viola player in the Midland Youth Orchestra, in Birmingham (UK). I transcribed it specifically to play in my concert in the re-opening series here at St John the Divine last Tuesday. The transcription process took around 8 months and finished by going through about 12 different edits. This opulent music suits the symphonic colours of our instrument here perfectly - it’s nice to be able to feature the French Horn, Clarinet, Corno di Bassetto, Harmonic Flutes, Vox Baryton, Tuba etc. The great success of Opus 150A is its seamless fusion of old and new - in 1953 G Donald Harrison kept a huge amount of the original E M Skinner pipework (1911) and incorporated it into his sizzling, American classic scheme. Registering this beautiful music at St John the Divine was a quite lengthy but totally exhilarating process and last month I took the opportunity to record it during rehearsal, and I hope you will enjoy the results here. I hope you’ll listen with a completely open mind - it’s not supposed to be a carbon copy of the orchestra, more of a recasting, but always based on the original spirit. Of course organs have developed colossally since 1877 when Brahms composed this magnum opus and we now have almost limitless control in terms of management of colour. My own sense is that the music has an equal emotional pull on the organ as with the original version, and especially in such an incredible acoustic as St John the Divine.

My Zoom H5 was positioned in the middle of the Great Choir. One member of the audience at last Tuesday’s concert contacted me to let me know that the decibel output at the end of the last movement was 94dbs - that’s with the Tubas coupled, and that his iPhone decibel meter came up with a red exclamation warning! I wrote back and said the tutti of Notre-Dame was 109dbs, and that he should come back when the 16ft Pedal Ophicleide and State Trumpet are back, and we might then be in a position to compete… 😎🎶

Allegro non troppo
Adagio non troppo
Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)
Allegro con spirito