A mere matter of months after issuing Symphonies Nos 2 and 4 with the LSO, John Eliot Gardiner completes the cycle with the two named symphonies. As noted when reviewing that disc (12/19), Gardiner is a veteran of this music and revisits it here over two decades after recording it with his own period-instrument Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (Archiv, 6/98).

What remains an overriding characteristic of Gardiner’s approach to this music is his feeling for its drama, born not only of his own long experience as a conductor of the operatic as well as the sacred and symphonic repertoire but also from his avowed intent to prove mistaken those doubtful of Schumann’s abilities as an orchestrator. His long involvement with period instruments manifests itself in his encouragement of this sleekest of modern Romantic symphony orchestras to let an erstwhile fetish for blend go by the wayside; the heterogeneity of instruments and instrumental groupings is more the order of the day here, allowing higher woodwinds to float free and brighten a phrase, clarinets to blunt and darken the tone or a middle-string motif to ruffle the surface. And Gardiner is never less than fully aware of where this music’s motor is situated – the comparison with the poetic Herreweghe against the greater viscerality of these performances continues to hold true.

In between the two symphonies is a suitably louring performance of the Overture Schumann composed for his Manfred incidental music in 1848. The sheer individuality of its melodic contours and slithering harmonies makes one wonder yet again why these smaller works are so rarely heard.