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The Brahms Second was the symphony which in the days of 78s I was always wanting Walter to record. The H.M.V. catalogue seemed incomplete without it when the other three symphonies were there, and one tried to imagine how Walter would take this passage or that. Let me say at once that this new...

This performance goes to perfection ; and whereas with so many performances of symphonies under great conductors one personally would like just this or that passage differently interpreted (although one admits the rightness of what the conductor is doing), here I wouldn't want anything altered. I...

Walter begins at a speed that emphasises the non troppo of Brahms's allegro and in so reserved a manner that I wondered if he was saving up for something later on. But no; the whole movement, while it has, of course, its brilliant moments, is played with less rapture than I hoped for. What does...