Jarvi has been a prolific maker of records in the last two years, and I imagine that most collectors would think of him in terms of strong, highly committed, energetic performances. Yet the surprise here is his relaxed response to Brahms's serious, lofty vision. At the outset of the work he opts for a slowish tempo which would be perfectly acceptable as the foundation of a large-scale, cumulative first movement reading. But in fact the style is very legato with phrasing contrived in such a manner that it tends to inhibit the flow of the music. At several points Jarvi introduces quite deliberate hesitations, which makes the music's pulse still more flaccid and enervating. Towards the end of this movement he whips up the tempo, but it is really too late to save the day. In the second movement a good, sensible tempo is again chosen, but there are more little hesitations which rob the music of its impulse: it's a curiously muted reading. By contrast the third movement is a trifle hectic and over-boisterous, and orchestral textures tend to become a little confused in a somewhat over-reverberant acoustic. The last movement also has one or two eccentricities of phrase, and the passacaglia structure seems more than usual a collection of short episodes rather than a single entity.
In general Chandos have produced a good, though slightly recessed quality of sound, and there is some excellent playing from the LSO. But not even an enjoyably spirited account of the fine Schumann overture can make this disc competitive with the best versions now available. Of these, Carlos Kleiber's DG recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is surely still supreme. It's true that his disc has no fill-up, and the sound is just a little raw, but the performance bowled me over yet again when I heard it for comparison. It seems to me to have every virtue—strength, concentration, vitality combined with the most affecting warmth and subtlety of phrase: every detail seems perfectly managed. Karajan's midprice DG version, which also includes both the Tragic Overture and the Haydn Variations, is also impressive in its large-scale, objective style.'