Mendelssohn: Complete String Symphonies [SACD] [IMPORT] [SUPER AUDIO CD - DSD]

Felix [1] Mendelssohn (Composer), Lev Markiz (Conductor), Amsterdam Sinfonietta (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Amsterdam Sinfonietta
• Conductor: Lev Markiz
• Composer: Felix [1] Mendelssohn
• Audio CD (April 29, 2008)
• Please Note: Requires SACD-compatible hardware
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import, Super Audio CD - DSD
• Label: Bis
• ASIN: B0016OODES
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #254,233 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Winner, May 31, 2009

By	Roger Oakley (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Here are all thirteen of Mendelssohn's youthful String Symphonies
(plus one) in sparkling performances, beautifully recorded, on a single disc with a total playing-time of four-and-a-quarter hours.
The bonus is the version for full orchestra of No.8, which the thirteen-year-old composer produced just a few days after the original.
The strings of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta sound splendid throughout,
and the added wind and kettledrum parts make a fine effect.
The disc will only play on SACD players and is not exactly cheap
but I think it offers great value.
Congatulations to BIS. More discs like this please.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Losers! Both the Suffering Mendelssohn (His Music Battered & Butchered) and Markiz (One Miserably Bullying Thug of a Conductor)!, July 25, 2009

By	C-P Parker "Jerry Parker" (région de l'Abitibi, QC) - See all my reviews

Anyone who loves the genuine aesthetic of the music of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and of the 19th Century must recoil in dismay upon auditioning the release by BIS Records of all of the composer's early "string symphonies" (those that predate the standard 5 numbered symphonies)! What tormentedly misguided interpretations! These performers (Lev Markiz, leading the Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam) arouse a similar distaste that one encounters on hearing the Hanover Band's stylistically execrable and hence defective recordings of the Beethoven overtures, which takes an approach to Beethoven akin to Markiz' way of plowing through Mendelssohn. These deluded zealots play Mendelssohn's earliest achivements at writing symphonies with a near-total absence of legato that makes no sense even in Baroque music, and of which the absence makes for sheer butchery in 19th century music, the child Mendelssohn's included.

All that spiky chugging and hacking, mincingly poking and churning through this music leaves the listener appalled at the cruel pointlessness of the resulting sheer lack of musicality. Presumably, these zealots assume that all this "crisp" articulation sounds impressibly brilliant, but, really, there is no element of virtuosity that is any major component of these delectably domestic works, regarding proper emphasis in interpretation, as opposed to the youthful Mendelssohn's virtuosic skill itself in composition at the boyish age at which he produced them. Hence, the flashy and soulessly mechanistic approach of Markiz and his players, hours of it, at tempi that for the most part are so breathlessly rapid as to trivialise the music, is just plain silly and irrelevant.

If one loves Mendelssohn, rather than acquire BIS Records' set only to endure the musical equivalent of heart-burn from the ire to which listening to this frontal assault on Mendelssohn's string symphonies gives rise, order one of the other more musically sound and sane recordings of these works that Amazon.ca makes available to acquire a more truly musical set of these modest, but delectably and sweetly adorable, works, as played with real musicianship by other musicians of more informed sensibility. Even retaining Markiz' recording after having purchased it is only for the sake of the rarely included uncompleted 13th string symphony (one movement only) and for the alternative versions (with and without winds) of no. 8 (included often enough, anyway, in the case of no. 8, on other recorded sets of these works), but those musicological considerations are the only factors which save this set from a fast act of weeding out from a discerning listener's collection. Amazon.com and other national Amazon WWW sites can serve the buyer better with another choice for this repertoire, to help its customers to live happily with Mendelssohn, properly played with respect and genuine musicianship!

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!, January 14, 2009

By	J. Newcomb (the Midwest) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What is wrong with the first reviewer? Obviously you don't want this set if you don't have an SACD player, but who complains about getting four hours of music in great sound for $20-25???? BIS is giving incredible value for money here.