Schubert Symphonies 5 & 8

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Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: DG

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 50

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 427 646-2GH

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 9, 'Great'	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: Classics

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: EC1010-4

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 5	Franz Schubert, Composer Franz Schubert, Composer Jacek Kaspszyk, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra
Symphony No. 8, 'Unfinished'	Franz Schubert, Composer Franz Schubert, Composer Jacek Kaspszyk, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: DG

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 427 645-4GH

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 5	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor
Symphony No. 8, 'Unfinished'	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: DG

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 427 646-4GH

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 9, 'Great'	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: DG

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 57

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 427 645-2GH

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 5	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor
Symphony No. 8, 'Unfinished'	Franz Schubert, Composer (Royal) Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Franz Schubert, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Conductor

Composer or Director: Franz Schubert

Label: EMI

Magazine Review Date: 1/1990

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 54

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 749850-2

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Symphony No. 3	Franz Schubert, Composer Franz Schubert, Composer Riccardo Muti, Conductor, Bass Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Symphony No. 5	Franz Schubert, Composer Franz Schubert, Composer Riccardo Muti, Conductor, Bass Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Author: Edward Greenfield

After the record-breaking slowness of Bernstein's recent records of both Tchaikovsky's Pathetique and Dvorak's

New World Symphonies, I was apprehensive as to how he would tackle these Schubert symphonies, above all the

Great C major with its built-in reputation for ''heavenly length''. Maybe in reaction against that celebrated comment of Schumann, Bernstein opts in all four movements for relatively fast speeds. In a way I am reminded of another conductor with something of a reputation for expansiveness, Klaus Tennstedt. He took a comparably brisk view of this work in his EMI version with the Berlin Philharmonic, which now cries out to be reissued on CD.
It is not until the main

Allegro of the first movement that Bernstein really shows his hand. The slow introduction, warmly moulded, flows at a normal enough speed, but then he launches into an exhilaratingly brisk and rhythmic account of the first movement, refusing even a momentary

tenuto for the entry of the second subject, let alone a slowing. He draws from the Royal Concertgebouw the most delicate playing in the

sempre piano of the recapitulation, and keeps up the momentum in the coda past the first return of the theme of the introduction, making up for that with the biggest possible

rallentando at the end for the final statement.
Where Bernstein and Tennstedt are virtually identical in their speeds for the first, third and fourth movements, Bernstein is markedly faster in the

Andante con moto of the second movement, making the main theme light and jaunty. He makes no

accelerando in the big ostinato crescendo, and shows his cunning in the following cello theme, slowing the tempo in the traditional way but with far less than usual of a feeling of gear-change at the end, when the main tempo is resumed. The scherzo is tough rather than charming at Bernstein's brisk speed, but well sprung, and the urgency of the finale goes with satisfying weight and fine articulation of triplets by the Concertgebouw strings. The rasp of horns and trombones is beautifully caught, adding to the exhilaration of this live performance. In his urgency Bernstein omits exposition repeats in the outer movements, as well as the second repeat in the scherzo. The sound is fuller and warmer with a more realistic presence than he has been given in most of his live recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic. The one reservation to make is that even with those repeats omitted, DG have not found space for a fill-up, as they have for the Gramophone Award-winning Abbado, who observes every repeat and would remain my first choice.
Bernstein is just as surprisingly brisk in the first movement of the

Unfinished making it much more clearly a sonata-form

Allegro, with the semiquavers of the main theme given an almost Mendelssohnian quality in their lightness. Perhaps even more surprisingly he refuses to linger over the haunting melody of the second subject, keeping it very fresh, hardly at all moulding it in the way that Abbado does, for example, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Here I also have for comparison the new Collins Classics issue with Jacek Kaspszyk and the LPO, but I fear that by comparison in thishmovement Kaspszyk is a dull dog, not just slow but rhythmically heavy, missing both the delicacy and the mystery. He is more successful in the slow movement, where the LPO strings play with admirable refinement. There, many will prefer his direct manner to Bernstein's rather heavily moulded treatment at an unusually slow tempo—almost a reversion to the romantic manner that prompted his

Pathetique and

New World performances. With the

fortissimo interjections all the weightier at Bernstein's speed, it remains a strong and convincing reading, while Kaspszyk is rather let down by the slightly distanced recording, which allows little expansion of bite in those passages. The sound for Bernstein in both No. 5 and the

Unfinished is comparably full and atmospheric to that for the

Great C major.
In the Fifth Symphony some may similarly have reservations over Bernstein's relatively slow tempo for the second movement

Andante con moto, which again is fairly heavily moulded. Yet the refinement of the playing and the detailed imagination puts it in a different league from both Kaspszyk's version, admirable as it is in its nicely pointed way, and Muti's with the Vienna Philharmonic. Both in No. 3 and in No. 5 I am disappointed in the way that Muti's very plain approach undermines any hint of charm. He even seems to take little or no delight in the springy second theme on the oboe in the first movement of No. 3 a classic moment in early Schubert. With recording less transparent than on the rival versions, emphasizing an overall smoothness of manner, it is a disappointing issue despite the refinement of Vienna Philharmonic playing. By Muti's high standards these resemble runthroughs rather than real performances. Both Kaspszyk and Muti yield before Bernstein in all three fast movements of No. 5, not least the finale, where he adopts a dashing, much faster speed than either; light as well as brisk. In that movement among my comparisons only Abbado—at a speed to match Bernstein's—obsenes the exposition repeat, though all do in the first movement.
Of the four new issues here, plainly, the two Bernsteins are the ones to recommend. Whatever detailed reservations there may be, Bernstein is consistently at his most magnetic, justifying even more than usual his latterday technique of having live recordings edited together and tidied up afterwards.'

Schubert Symphony No.9

Symphony No. 9, 'Great'