Schubert Symphonies

The name of Eduard van Beinum may too often be overlooked among the music directors of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in between the longer and more internationally renowned tenures of Willem Mengelberg and Bernard Haitink, but this is a wrong that Eloquence has put right with the reissue of the greater portion of Van Beinum’s recorded work with the orchestra on both Decca and Philips. The conductor has been revealed anew as an interpreter of lucidly phrased fidelity to the score and uncommon sensitivity. The present issue brings repertoire especially close to Van Beinum’s heart. He was a master Schubertian, who needed to be taught no lessons by the nascent period-instrument movement on nurturing a hop, skip and jump in the composer’s effervescent orchestral textures or coaxing a sweetly flowing lyricism from their sunny complexions.

This recording would be ideal for one with the intent of studying the scores, as it is a rather exact and unbiased read, quite true to Schubert's intended style. The pharsing, choice of tempi and degree of precision are examplary for a work of the era.

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. The Fourth is Schubert’s first symphony in a minor key, and adumbrates a totally new harmonic worldview that Dvořák associated with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. On the contrary, the Fifth sounds Mozartian and cheerful, although that light-heartedness is only an appearance, as is so often the case in Schubert’s music. In the composer’s words, “too light a mind usually harbours a heart that is too heavy!” Looking closer beneath the surface, the cross-relations between the “Tragic” Fourth and “lighter” Fifth become all the more evident. The players of the B’Rock Orchestra present these works on period instruments; transparent, but full of fire.