This budget label has the appearance of higher-priced product, and includes notes, texts and translations, but closer inspection of the notes here rewards us with the information that, after the 1830s, ‘Mendelssohn’s musical production did indeed suffer a slowdown, becoming suffered and meditated’, and the texts are peppered with misprints, such as ‘er trostet die Betrubten mist’, which might politely translate as ‘He comforteth the grieving dung’ (a ‘version’ happily not sung by this recording’s excellent tenor). If, musically, we are in safer hands, there is little to excite in the manner of Maag’s famous early 1960s LSO Mendelssohn Scottish Symphony (Decca, 7/95). Tempos are old-school (as are, say, Abbado’s), and slower sections or movements are gracefully given, and often very sensitively shaped and shaded, especially the G minor ‘Valse Triste’ second movement. But an inner vitality and joyful countenance is wanting in both playing and singing for most of the Allegros, suggesting that the ideal (or maybe the reality) does not stretch far beyond good discipline and balance.
To those ends we have a clean and presently balanced recording in quite a dry-sounding hall; a well-drilled chamber-size chorus whose pitching is generally very fine (sopranos only losing it near the end of the work); and an orchestra with a sensible number of strings. Unfortunately, violins have a tendency to pale into inaudibility when playing quietly; timpani are oppressively heavy; and when the whole ensemble is inspired to raise the roof, the hall’s confining structure seems to offer resistance. In other words, Abbado, Karajan and more recent accounts from Spering and Rilling are worth the extra outlay.'