Customer Reviews

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3/ Schumann: Cello Concerto (Classical Orchestral & Cello Collections: Various Artists)

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From San Francisco:

I like this reading of the "Scottish" symphony. The "Allegro un poco agitato" of the first movement is, indeed, a little slower than we are accustomed to hearing it, but in the hands of Konwitschny and his Leipzig orchestra, it's a joy from start to finish. Rather than passionless, the interpretation is heartfelt, and beautifully rendered. Thanks to a warm and neatly divided early-sixties stereo sound, the work's component parts clearly stand forth, and we hear many details that are masked in other interpretations. The symphonic portrait grows in stature and vehemence across the successive movements, and the arc of sound achieves a fine culmination.

In the Schumann concerto, Juernjakob Timm deploys a luxuriant sound and a thoroughgoing musicality, backed up by the same Gewandhaus orchestra that sounds, twenty years after the Mendelssohn recording, remarkably like its old self. This is a good thing; and the performance under Masur's skillful baton is again a generous one, giving much pleasure.

In both recordings, the Leipzig orchestra demonstrates an old-fashioned musicality whose appeal the decades have not dimmed.

If you like classical music played in a very ponderous manner, go ahead and buy this budget CD. If you like it played with passion and plenty of forward momentum, avoid this pathetic CD.