For his performance of Johannes Brahms’s symphonies, chief conductor Kirill Petrenko returns to their roots – and to his own: in Meiningen. Court conductor Fritz Steinbach performed them there from 1886 onwards and, thanks to Brahms’s regular visits, recorded the composer’s wishes in the scores. Brahms’s works form a major part of the repertoire of Kirill Petrenko, who was himself general music director in Meiningen. Steinbach’s extremely flexible tempo choices in particular characterise Petrenko’s reading of the First Symphony, which he presented with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the season opening 2025.

In the booklet accompanying the edition, which also includes the Tragic Overture, Maren Goltz and Peter Gülke provide in-depth analyses of the creative process behind the symphony’s composition.