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V.com weekend vote: Which is your favorite Brahms Symphony?
Here is a potentially difficult question: What is your favorite Brahms symphony?
This vote was inspired by my friend Colleen Coomber, who posted this question along with a picture from her hotel practice room of her violin music for Brahms 1, in front of a window overlooking a gorgeous Alaskan backdrop, where she is playing in the Juneau Symphony.
Personally I love them all, and this question seems a little like asking "Which is your favorite child?" I love them all! But in this case, I will decide, at least based on my mood, today. Here is the vote, and below I've provided some listening and some thoughts, in case you need to think about it! And please add your own thoughts about these symphonies - what you like about them, your favorite performances, etc. in the comments!
Scroll to the bottom for listening....And here are my random thoughts on these symphonies. Over the decades I have had the great privilege of playing them all, starting (surprisingly!) with the first symphony, in youth orchestra. We had no business playing in youth orchestra - it's really one of the "harder" ones! But here goes, random thoughts!
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was (the ripe old age of) 43 when his first symphony was premiered. His Symphony No. 1 is a monster, in such a delicious way, with its relentless drive, its intensity. It is long and oftentimes morose; it twists all over the place, changes moods on a dime. It's awesome, in the dictionary meaning of "awesome": "extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear."
No. 2, by contrast, is full of love, nobility, warmth, excitement. It still has some of that Brahmsian angst, but but certainly it feels less conflicted. It's wonderful to listen to - I had a CD of von Karajan conducting this with Berlin and played it over and over - more times than I can count.
Symphony No. 3 is perhaps the moodiest. Personally this was the last one that I learned to love, but just maybe I love it the most. Its third movement is especially well-crafted, with the cellos singing out the theme from the beginning. But I especially love the end of this symphony, which at first puzzled me. Everyone knows that if you want the audience to go crazy with applause, you end your piece "loud and fast." But this symphony just peters out. What? I've thought about it a lot. It ends with slow-burning nostalgia - as so many things in life end. It makes my heart full, my mind reflective. It's not a show-stopper, but a beautiful ending that says something very profound about the human condition.
To me, Brahms 4 wins the prize for "best edited." By this time Brahms had streamlined his symphonic ideas, and this work has a certain tidiness to it. (Plus, there's that fun part for triangle in the third movement!). I've certainly played it the most of all the symphonies, and I suspect that it is programmed most often, though I don't know this for a fact! (Feel free to cite statistics, if you have any!)
Here are some performances for your listening pleasure:
Brahms Symphony No. 1, 1987 performance with Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker:
Brahms Symphony No. 2, 2015 performance with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra:
Brahms Symphony No. 3, 2014 performance with Herbert Blomstedt and the Concertgebouworkest.
Brahms Symphony No. 4 2014 performance with Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
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Replies
Number 4 was my favourite until we did number 1 recently in my community orchestra. We did number 2 last year, and I definitely prefer number one over that one. So maybe it's a tie between 1 and 4, but I voted for 1.
If you're yearning for more Brahms symphonies there's Schoenberg's orchestration of the G minor piano quartet but more convincing in my book is Peter Klatzow's orchestration of the Op.111 string quintet.
1st movement - https://youtu.be/pQZpJuLBsN8
2nd movement - https://youtu.be/tWvuIwuH8xw
3rd movement - https://youtu.be/x1gbI5wFqgA
The orchestra is the Cape Town SO who are clearly loving it. Sadly Klatzow died before he got around to orchestrating the finale
I played #2 last March, so I voted for it. Don't think I know the others (I'll have heard them all on the third programme and radio 3 over the last 60 years, but only passively). Never understood why Rick Wakeman did that keyboard version of the 3rd movement of #4 and, as a result never wanted to listen to the whole thing.
If I could add another choice to the poll it would be “whichever one my community orchestra is performing”. I love them all!
I have always loved No 3. In fact, I'd say it's my favorite symphony, full stop. I finally had the chance to play it last year. A wonderful concert. Loved it.
My favorite Brahms symphony is;--- Dvorak #7
We're currently doing Dvorak #6.
Last time I played any Dvorak was a piano duet in about 1975!
I've ordered the CDs of all 9.
Anyway, I guess we'd better get back to Brahms. And I guess I'd better buy the CDs.
I love them all, but my favorite has to be no. 1. It's just so good, and the concertmaster solo with the horn and winds is just sublime. No. 3 is a close second, though for the 3rd movement.
I have a sentimental attachment to #2 because I played it as a high school sophomore in youth orchestra, and it was the first major symphony I played. 2nd violin. I found it deeper and more complex than the Handel, Vivaldi, and Corelli I played in school orchestra. I also think the second movement is the first serious, non-etude piece I played that had that many sharps in the key signature. Hearing it I somehow understood why a composer would write in a strange key like that rather than just sticking to D and G major like most of what I was used to. It sounded alien, from another time, but also beautiful. I bought a record album (vinyl) of it, when most girls my age were buying albums from their favorite pop stars. That album led me to Brahms Symphony #1, which I also loved. I walked down the aisle at my wedding to the theme from the 4th mvt, played by a string quartet.
I voted #2 but really they're all spectacular. Somehow over the centuries I've never played the 3rd Symphony one of those odd twists of fate.
-M
Interesting, and frightening. I'm just listening to Karajan's recordings, and #1 is somehow an old friend, even the oboe solo in mov 1. It's so familiar that I have to think about it. I don't recall playing it, although I had a three-volume set of orchestral oboe solos that I did practise.. We might have done it at university under Howard Williams. I can't remember those days in any detail. #3 is unfamiliar, except for the 3rd mov. Film scores probably account for that.
I didn't vote. I love all four - each for different reasons. It would be hard to pick a favorite.
Brahms 2 was one of the first pieces of orchestral music I heard at home, before I started elementary school. I've always loved it, and it will always have a special place in my memory. During my degree program, it was the final piece in the last program of orchestral music I played. Since then, I've done no further orchestral playing, realizing about this time that I preferred doing chamber music instead.
The Second has been called Brahms's Pastoral Symphony. Even before I heard this description, I had associated the piece with outdoor rural scenes - sunny afternoons with occasional distant thunder; e.g., the roll of the timpani early in the first movement. This movement, in particular, has a lot of contrast between lyricism and dramatic tension.
For me, all four symphonies, not just the Second, evoke the outdoors.
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January 26, 2026 at 05:35 AM · At the moment I'd say No. 1 is my favorite, but it depends on my mood on any given day. I'm pretty sure I've ranked them in every possible order over the years, with each of the four having been at both the top and the bottom just within the last three months.
I also played No. 1 first... and it's not only the first Brahms symphony I played, but the first piece I ever rehearsed in an orchestra, about 25 years ago. I really had no business playing it at the time, having joined my college orchestra as a completely self-taught string player with zero prior orchestra experience, and I probably played less than 25% of the notes, but I'm still counting it as played. I've played three of the four now, each exactly once; I'm still missing No. 3.
BTW, I have somewhat old statistics from before the League of American Orchestras updated its website. Prior to 2014 the LAO had multiple years of full Orchestra Repertoire Report data available. Aggregating the five seasons from 2008-09 through 2012-13, here's how the four Brahms symphonies ranked among all symphonies:
Brahms 1 - 6th most played symphony
Brahms 4 - 9th
Brahms 2 - 11th
Brahms 3 - tied 29th-31st