A general air of vitality and clear-headed musicianship has characterized this series so far, and the latest disc is no exception. The performance of the Pastoral Symphony is especially agreeable. Mackerras’s shaping of the two outer movements is unerring, carried along on tempos that are swift though never in any way inflexible. The peasants’ merrymaking is cleanly delivered, the storm has a quite literally terrific impact. The slow movement, with the violins here muted throughout, is also quite brisk though never unfeelingly so. In the Fourth Symphony the playing has greater individuality in moments of transition (in the first movement) and in the slow movement’s more private musings than it does elsewhere. Businesslike rather than inspired might be an apt description of parts of the first movement and finale.
Mackerras’s decision to seat the violins antiphonally pays huge dividends, as always; and the recordings are excellent. If the odd detail goes amiss, it is perhaps as much Beethoven’s fault as anyone’s. Having taken the trouble to change the scoring in the recapitulation of the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony, he probably should have marked the second violins’ pizzicato contribution at bars 383-9 (8'42'') mf rather than p. Karl Bohm shrewdly does it for him (9'42'') on his classic 1971 VPO performance now on DG’s Originals label.'