Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1-10 (version for orchestra) Munich Radio Orchestra & Roberto Abbado

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): Hungarian Dance:
• 1 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 1 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 03:06
• 2 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 2 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 03:03
• 3 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 3 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 02:14
• 4 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 4 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 04:11
• 5 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 5 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 02:37
• 6 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 6 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 03:48
• 7 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 7 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 01:42
• 8 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 8 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 03:02
• 9 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 9 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 01:54
• 10 Brahms: Hungarian Dance: No. 10 (version for orchestra) (Studio) 01:41
• Total Runtime 27:18

Info for Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1-10 (version for orchestra)

Before the publication of his Hungarian Dances in their original version for piano four hands, Johannes Brahms was hardly known to the educated middle classes, but the works ensured that the composer became a household name. In their subsequent orchestral versions, the Dances entered the repertoire of prestigious concert orchestras and, after music had become technically reproducible, went on to become even more massively popular. On this CD, BR-KLASSIK presents Brahms' Hungarian Dances Nos. 1–10 in their orchestral versions, in a studio production with the Munich Radio Orchestra under its former chief conductor Roberto Abbado.

Johannes Brahms had become acquainted with Hungarian melodies and scales through the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, with whom he had undertaken his first concert tour in 1853. His Hungarian Dances for piano four hands were composed from around 1858 onwards; the first ten were published in 1869, the others in 1880. In 1872, Brahms presented a version of the first ten dances for solo piano and in 1873 he orchestrated Dances Nos. 1, 3 and 10, premiering them in Leipzig on February 5, 1874.

In his Hungarian Dances, Brahms skilfully combined various Hungarian folk song melodies with his own. The fact that the originals were, and remain, unknown to most listeners is probably what makes the compositions so appealing. His Hungarian Dances were extremely popular right from the start, and are still among his best-known works today. None other than Antonín Dvořák was responsible for the orchestrations of other dances, and popular orchestral versions were also produced by Albert Parlow, Andreas Hallén, Martin Schmeling, Paul Juon and Hans Gál.

Munich Radio Orchestra
Roberto Abbado, conductor

Roberto Abbado
awarded the prestigious “Premio Abbiati” by the Italian Music Critics Association for his “accomplished interpretative maturity, the extent and the peculiarity of a repertoire where he has offered remarkable results through an intense season”, has been appointed by the Korean National Symphony Orchestra as its next Music Director starting in 2026. He is currently the Chief Conductor of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. He studied orchestra conducting under Franco Ferrara at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he was invited – the only student in the history of the Academy – to lead the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia. He made his debut in the United States in 1991 in New York conducting the St. Luke’s Orchestra. Since then he has returned regularly to the US to lead the Symphonic Orchestras of the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, San Francisco, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra – of which he is one of the “Artistic Partners” – working with soloists like Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Nigel Kennedy, Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Vadim Repin, Sarah Chang, Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu, André Watts, Andras Schiff, Lang-Lang, and Katia and Marielle Labèque.

He was Musical Director of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester from 1991 to 1998, of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia from 2015 to 2019, of the Festival Verdi in Parma from 2018 to 2022. He has worked with many ensembles, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouworkest, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre national de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester and the MDR-Sinfonieorchester (Leipzig), the NDR Sinfonieorchester (Hamburg), the Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester (Stockholm), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, the Korean National Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.

Roberto Abbado has conducted numerous world premieres and new opera productions, including Fedora and Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; I vespri siciliani at the Wiener Staatsoper; La Gioconda, Lucia di Lammermoor, La donna del lago, and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Teneke at La Scala; L’amour des trois oranges, Aida and La traviata at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Henze’s Phaedra – at its Italian premiere – and Anna Bolena at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito at the Teatro Regio of Turin; La donna del lago at the Opéra Garnier in Paris; Ermione, Zelmira, and Mosè in Egitto at the Rossini Opera Festival; the Italian premiere of Marschner’s Der Vampyr at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, and more recently the world premiere of Arianna, Fedra e Didone at the Festival di Spoleto, Le Trouvère, Luisa Miller and Macbeth at the Festival Verdi in Parma.

A passionate interpreter of contemporary music, Abbado’s repertoire includes composers like Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Goffredo Petrassi, Sylvano Bussotti, Niccolò Castiglioni, Azio Corghi, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Giorgio Battistelli, Michele dall’Ongaro, Giacomo Manzoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Vacchi, Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Messiaen, Alfred Schnittke, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, John Adams, Ned Rorem, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, Charles Wuorinen and Silvia Colasanti.

Booklet for Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1-10 (version for orchestra)