Search - Robert Schumann, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf :: Schumann: Symphony Nos. 1 & 4

A treasured album: The best "Spring" in the market!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 09/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's unbelievable how the great audiences have not fixed special attention about the Grandness and brightness of this superb performance. I f I had to elaborate a personal list with the ten most outstanding recordings along the brilliant career of Charles Munch, the distinguished Alsatian conductor, this work should be included. Of course you must include his Berlioz' s Fantastic Symphony in Mono, Scherzo of Mab Queen, Mendelssohn' Fifth, Saint Saëns Third, Schubert's Ninth, Ravel' s My mother goose and Daphne and Cloe, Haydn' s London, among the most representative and historical performances in the story of the ancient disc.

Munch, from the first bars involves you with his Dionysian rapture, fierce commitment, fascinating spelling and elegant phrasing. Boston Symphony was living with any doubt their Golden Age. The impressive Fifties Decade found Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York Orchestras in extraordinary shape, vigorous musicality, through a praising effort of so many Conducting Masters: Toscanini, Stokowski, Reiner, Kubelik, Mitropoulus, Rodzinski, Desire Defeuw, De Sabata, Koussevitszky, Ormandy, Paray, Dorati, Szell, Bernstein, Munch, Fiedler and Cantelli, among others. I think that such amount of collective talent and explosive and artistic was a fortunate circumstance that somehow involved to several generations of musicians and listeners in a febrile and healthy competition for reach the pinnacle.

But Boston Symphony was permeated by an invisible flame and superb good taste. Apart of the astonishing refinement and illustrated presence of this singular baton, there was a proud tradition behind them.

The Symphony Spring has never been played ever. I have tried to get other recordings such Fricsay' s Rias, Paray's Detroit, Bernstein New York and Bernstein ` s Vienna, Sawalisch Dresden and Eliau Inbal, but forget it, there is nothing to do with this jeweled, inspired and genuine interpretation

In what Leinsdorf 's Fourth concerns, the result is a very interesting approach, it' s well phrased though to my opinion lacks of expressiveness; there are better options. I will give you three Abendroth ( My favorite one) , Fürtwangler and Paul Paray with Detroit Symphony.

The time has come for RCA Engineers to make a Luxe Edition about this recording. In France a fantastic re mastered process was made with Mendelssohn `s Third, Fourth and Fifth.

It 's simply a sincere advise, for the actual and future generations of listeners.

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