Though one recalls with pleasure Bruno Walter's post-war Philadelphia recording of the Pastoral Symphony (Columbia LX963/7, 11/46—nla), the orchestra has not been associated with an important Beethoven symphony cycle. As such, Muti's new cycle is particular interest. Stephen Johnson gave an initially enthusiastic if eventually guarded welcome to this first record, devoted to Beethoven's two symphonies in the key of C, when it appeared on LP and cassette last October; and guarded enthusiasm would seem to be order of the day.
Muti has evidently done his homework on the music and, like the young Karajan working with the admirable post-war Philharmonia Orchestra, has determined to use first-rate orchestral playing as the basis for interpretations which are direct and refined. The Philadelphia playing is articulate, full bodied when the music demands it (as at the start of the Fifth Symphony), featherly and precise in the more lightly scored First Symphony. I found the slow movement of the Fifth Symphony. I found the slow movement of the Fifth Symphony a shade dull (it doesn't do to cosset this movement). Elsewhere, Muti occasionally allows the music to slip a little too easily by. The finale of the First Symphony seems more exquisite than dynamic. In the Fifth Symphony the beat runs ahead of the established pulse in parts of the finale and Muti allows the first movement coda a fluency that to some extent masks the shock of the appearance of a new idea at bar 423.
The recording, even so CD, has a velvety quality which some will think remiss in the face of Beethoven's earthier, guittier self. When Beethoven resorts in the finale of the Fifth Symphony to the Rossinian trick of writing for piccolo, cellos, basses, and not much else the texture goes blank; in general, though, the sound is very pleasing provided it is played at a reasonably high level.
The CD raises two other points. Four seconds is not a long enough gap between the first and second movements of the Fifth Symphony. And why (this is a common failing at the moment) are the works set out in non-chronological order? If one does happen to want to hear the record through, or to hear both works at a single sitting, it is improbable that one would follow the Fifth with the First, whereas the Fifth prefaced by the First is an entirely plausible procedure.'