Sir Charles Mackerras’s recording makes a first-rate budget-price recommendation for this sensible though by no means usual coupling of Beethoven symphonies.
It will come as no surprise that one of our finest living interpreters of Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni should be very much at home in music as vital and witty as this. These are, indeed, fiery and delighted performances. Nor do they neglect that element of quiet (quiet surprise) in Beethoven’s music. I happen to think that the throwaway final phrase of the Eighth Symphony’s first movement is funnier without any hint of a ritardando. (Like Miss Bates at the end of Chapter 28 of Jane Austen’s Emma, the music is still chattering when the curtain comes down.) But there is little else in this general area on which Mackerras can be faulted.
Sir Roger Norrington’s 1986 recordings, now at mid price on Virgin Classics, bring out the subversive element in Beethoven’s thinking rather more strongly than Mackerras’s. The introduction to the Second Symphony is a particular case in point. Norrington’s performances also have an altogether bolder sound. Mackerras’s Liverpool disc is nicely recorded; winds sing through the textures where necessary; there is a general air of fleetness, clarity and grace. However, the lightweight, rather recessed string sound does lead to parts of the music being sketched rather than engraved or painted in oils. There is a feeling of ease and urbanity here that Norrington boldly, some will say rightly, eschews.'