He was welcome in any concert hall in the world, but Maurice Abravanel (1903-93) spent 30 years in Salt Lake City, and the Utah Symphony accordingly became a world-class ensemble. Like the other albums we offer from Silverline Classics, each of these two-sided discs contains a superb performance in CD stereo on one side. Flip the disc over, and the other side presents the album in remastered sound for your DVD player, with additional video featurettes on the conductor and the music.

After years of soul-searching effort, Johannes Brahms finally produced his 1876 Symphony No. 1, and it remains one of the quintessential Romantic symphonies. Abravanel's recording of Brahms's breakthrough masterpiece is paired here with the composer's joyful Variations on a Theme by Haydn.