Since 1992 the Danish Michael Schonwandt has been Principal Conductor of the Berlin SO. So not surprisingly this warmly recorded new performance is given in German even if rather more surprisingly, in an 'adaptation' of the text (incidentally printed only in German in the booklet) by Dietrich Steinbeck. 'Truncation' might be a better word in view of its more than usual omissions. A mere sentence has to suffice for the kindly administrations of the mountain hunter; as for the good old Abbot, offering the balm of the church, we meet him not at all. But Schumann's score is all there to accompany Manfred on his supernatural encounters. And to remind us of the deeper conflicts at stake we're given the 12-minute-long overture not only at the start of the disc but a second time at the end.
Schonwandt wrings the last drop out of that anguished masterpiece in an unashamedly romantic reading. And though at times, perhaps, insufficiently magical and incorporeal, as when conjuring up the Witch of the Alps or the phantom of Astarte (marked ppp in the score), he elicits an imaginative response from players and singers alike. But in the all-important melodramas, where the music can so miraculously illuminate the spoken word, I had the impression that those involved in this performance were not wholly in sympathy with Schumann's ventures into this then experimental art-form—preferring to reduce the text to the merest narrative essentials, or else segregate words and actual notes wherever possible.
The biggest let-down, inevitably, comes at the end, when after the total excision of the Abbot's attempts to redeem the tortured hero's soul, his own last words, as well as Manfred's ''Old man, 'tis not so difficult to die'', of course have to be omitted from the closing Requiem aeternam.
We all know that Beecham, in his great love of the work, and quest for atmospheric evocation, took liberties of the opposite kind, even orchestrating apposite keyboard miniatures to add to Schumann's own score (and with what unforgettable beauty in ''The stars are forth'' in Part 3). We all also know that Laidman Browne in the title-role is just a little too tremulously emotional for present-day taste. Jorg Gudzuhn on the new disc emerges as much less vulnerable. But it's that old performance, with its keener insights into Byron's own innermost heart, that will always haunt my own memory.'