Ivan March described the Marriner approach as ''Mendelssohnian'', and that just about sums it up. This is Schumann with a clear head. The sound is lean and dapper, the rhythms crisp, the general tone amiable, but it isn't enough. There isn't the weight, there isn't the grandeur. Most critical of all is Marriner's inclination to scimp on the length and breadth of his phrasing. I miss, too, an element of cragginess in the orchestral colour (trombones rarely bring the requisite ballast); the muscularity of Schumann's virile allegros is seriously undermined. Take the opening movement of the Second Symphony, or better still, the Rhenish. There is a lack of sinew; too little sense of that irresistible forward surge, so exhilarating in the hands of a Bernstein or a Sawallisch. Marriner's Stuttgart orchestra are a stylish and enthusiastic body but the depth of sonority is somewhat limited.
The recording, too, is fresh and honestly balanced but unexceptional. You do get the addition of Schumann's youthful Zwickauer Symphony: a flawed but fascinating document—dark, restless and unpredictable—which amounts to a good deal more than just young Schumann in the making. Even so, I cannot see that its presence is going to assist in selling this set. With Sawallisch arriving now on mid-price CD from EMI, there is simply no contest.'