Gunter Wand, NDR Symphony - Brahms: Symphonies 2 & 3 (Limited edition) (2004) [SACD]

The CD is released on a limited club subscription, and has never been publicly sold. Therefore, there are no links to stores, etc.

I rarely stop looking for perfect performances and have an unhealthy habit of doubling and quintupling up works that I already own. Rarely does a performance come by that is so outstanding, so immediately satisfying all my desires, that I stop looking for new or even different recordings of the works in question. Maurizio Pollini’s rendition of the late Beethoven sonatas is one such performance (although it hasn’t kept me from amassing some 20-plus versions of each of those sonatas), G.Wand’s Brahms is another.
Incredibly musical, these four recordings (in great sound, now that they are remastered) exude a vitality that is beyond words. G.Wand is the ego-less conductor who disappears in the music making, leaving only Brahms and the listener. The result is a most thankful one, indeed. I am not suggesting you throw away your Abbado, Karajan, Walter and Bohm (the rest can probably go, though) – but these are the performances I always turn to, the ones that never disappoint me, no matter what mood I am in. That’s more than I can say about most recordings.
This may sound like hyperbole – but except for the handful of people I know who don’t rank this set atop their Brahms collections all others would agree that it isn’t