Schubert Symphonies

This recording was made as part of the complete recording of Franz Schubert’s symphonies with the Basel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Heinz Holliger.

If the shadow of Mozart still haunts Schubert’s Symphony no.5, the Seventh (in no way ‘unfinished’ in the eyes of its creator) already looks far into the future. Pablo Heras-Casado and the musicians of the Freiburger Barockorchester lead us towards that Romantic élan. Their flexible approach, keen and swift in the earlier symphony, making room for shadows and mystery in its successor, meets the challenge of bringing out the contrast between these ‘two Schuberts’, here more audible than ever.

Multiple prize-winning conductor René Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra present the third instalment of their Schubert cycle on PENTATONE with a recording of the composer’s Fourth and Fifth Symphony. Just as with the Second and Third, Jacobs approaches these works as a symphonic pair, revealing contrasting aspects of Schubert’s personality and compositional approach.

Herbert Blomstedt, at 94 the world’s “longest-serving” conductor and still one of the most vital, chose Franz Schubert’s last two symphonies, the Unfinished in B Minor and the Great in C Major for his DG debut, available for pre-order now.
Listen to the second pre-release track ‘Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 “The Great”: II. Andante con moto’ via the streaming tab above!

On the final disc of a complete cycle, Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra offer us their readings of Franz Schubert's first two symphonies.

After the success of his recordings of Symphonies nos. 1, 3 and 4, released on the Phi label in 2016, Philippe Herreweghe offers us the next instalment of Schubert’s orchestral output with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic: the Symphony no.2 D. 125 and Symphony no.5 D. 485 – both in B flat major. Like those on the previous disc, these works from his youth – written when the Viennese composer was not yet twenty years old – mark the promising beginnings of an already highly accomplished composer.

This recording was made as part of the complete recording of Franz Schubert’s symphonies with the Basel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Heinz Holliger. Schubert wrote his Third Symphony in barely two months in the early summer of 1815. He had completed his monumental Second Symphony only a short time earlier. His Third is a bright and highly sophisticated piece with almost crystalline textures in its inner movements. In its opening movement Schubert essays a technique that he not attempted before and creates a structural link between the slow introduction and the first subject. As a result, the music of the slow introduction no longer belongs to another, eerily unfathomable world, as it had done in the case of the First and Second Symphonies, but is integrated into the musical argument. It also introduces the recapitulation. In consequence the Third Symphony gives the impression of being more “of this world” and of seeming less labyrinthine than the Second.

Following a highly successful series ‘Mendelssohn in Birmingham’, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their former Chief Conductor Edward Gardner here presents a new series: Schubert Symphonies.

Multiple prize-winning conductor René Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra continue their Schubert cycle on PENTATONE with a recording of the composer’s Second and Third Symphony.