BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Jonathan Berman
Accentus ACC80544 206:26 mins (4 discs)
Following their highly acclaimed streamed recording of his First Symphony, Jonathan Berman and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales have now completed their Franz Schmidt symphony cycle. Packaged together in this sumptuously designed and luxuriantly recorded set, the performances of all four symphonies, released in celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth, pay worthy tribute to an undeniably major late-Romantic Austrian composer who, despite the passage of time, continues to divide opinion.
With almost evangelical zeal, Berman staunchly defends Schmidt from his detractors by providing some insightful personal observations in the booklet notes and by investing sufficient energy and dedication in his interpretations to allow the music to speak directly and fervently to the listener.
It’s also clear that members of the orchestra, the majority of whom must have experienced this music for the first time, share Berman’s commitment and enthusiasm, delivering playing of sensitivity and technical brilliance with some particularly distinguished solo contributions from trumpet, cello, cor anglais and horn in the Fourth Symphony.
One of the great virtues of Berman’s approach lies in its lyrical impulse which, in movements such as Finale to the Second Symphony or the darkly brooding Adagio of the Third, enables each individual strand in a densely polyphonic line to have an inner musical logic, thereby bringing clarity and purpose to orchestral textures that in other hands could easily sound heavy and overblown.
Berman’s approach to tempos throughout these works is generally more relaxed and expansive than in the rival recordings from Neeme Järvi (Chandos), Paavo Järvi (DG) or Vassily Sinaisky (Naxos). For the most part, this works well, although the Scherzo section to the middle movement of the Second Symphony is surely far too laid-back for the prescribed marking of ‘Sehr lebhaft’.
