With over 50 versions of the symphony available, let alone reissues and recouplings galore, a new one must make strong claims for consideration. Tilson Thomas pays the closest attention to the score in all its detail (as does a recording of exceptional lucidity). And this detail with which Berlioz makes his effects has no precedent in music. That was his starting-point. When little else follows in the first movement as it is played here, it all becomes literal-minded. Berlioz marked the movement Reveries, Passions, but what we hear is neither reverie nor passion, rather a very skilfully controlled exposition of the notes on the page. There is no dynamic thrust in the quaver chords that jab the idee fixe, only good timing. The closing chords, which Berlioz asked to be as soft as possible, are indeed that, and sound beautiful, but beautiful sound without meaning has no role here. The Ball has no lilt, let alone the whiff of danger that infects the music. When we come to the March to the Scaffold and the Witches’ Sabbath, everything sounds very nice. But this is not nice music. It is extremely nasty. One is tempted to wonder why, if Tilson Thomas can lay out the score so clearly and accurately, he does not then go ahead and perform it.
Among the recordings in the catalogue, there are plenty by conductors who have given exciting performances, and a few which do more than that and make one understand how Schumann, poring countless times over the score (even in a piano version), was “first dumbfounded, then shocked, and finally struck with wonder”. Among them are Davis, Gardiner, Monteux, Norrington and Klemperer. Other names could be added. At this level, Tilson Thomas is not one of them.'