Search - Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Benjamin Britten, Eduard Van Beinum :: Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major D 944 "Great"; Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes: Four Sea Interludes and Passacagli

An Unreported Gem

Donald Ordway | Los Angeles | 06/05/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I picked up this disc about a year, and I am surprised that it has gone unmarked upon during that time. So therefore let me remark there are a couple of remarkable performances on this CD. As much as I love the studio work on van Beinum; they did not usually catch the fire or electricity that is present on this disc. The Schubert is a gem: swift but not driven; wonderfully played, and with the authority of phrasing that you can only get from a great conductor (every phrase seems to be a prupose, and to add up within the whole). The excerpts from Peter Grimes are even more remarkable: when you hear the individual phrases rendered with such passion, it make the studio version, worthy enough in its own right, seem pale by comparison. And, even though the ink was still wet on the pages when the recording was made; van Beinum makes the Four Interludes seem like an intregated work, flowing seemlessly and logically. If there is a reservation to this performance, it would be with the Passacaglia: well played, but it did not come across to me as an intact piece: something with its own beginning and end, rather than just a bleeding chunk from a larger work."

A sadly underrated conductor.

Dufourny Jacques | Belgium | 08/23/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Modest and a musician before everything,E. van Beinum gives us here a great demonstration of the greatness and humanity of the music by Schubert: listen to the ebb and flow of the melodies and the strength of the shape of each movement of the symphony.He is helped by the magnificent Concertgebouw orchestra whose beauty of tone and perfect articulation light up the architecture of the music in spite of an old recording which preserves nevertheless the spontaneity of both works : indeed Britten is very good as well.

In short : a great living document and the only testimony of van Beinum conducting this great symphony."