Berlin Classics Basics 0185972BC, 67:56 (Distrib. Albany) ****:
Recorded 1961 (Rhenish) and 1962 (C Major), these inexpensively packaged Schumann symphonies contain a good deal of visceral excitement, especially as the work of Franz Konwitschny (1900-1962) seems to have made a resurgence. Konwitschny takes the first movement repeat for the C Major’s opening, and the fierce drive from strings and winds compels our attention to the sweet polyphony Schumann exacts from his choirs. The martial impetus of the music achieves a colossal, tensile peroration, certainly competitive with anything I have heard from Mitropoulos and his best acolyte, Bernstein. The Scherzo, with its two trios, plays like frenetic Mendelssohn, breathless, an etude for the Gewandhaus woodwinds. The heart of the symphony, the Adagio, presages Mahler; I wish Konwitschny would linger a bit here in the way Sinopoli did. Still, there is much to be said for the Gewandhaus brass and the exquisite string trill that floats into a studied fugato. Nice oboe and flute over the string syncopations that mark the agitated last movement. Linear, often literal in the manner of Toscanini, the performance still exudes a magisterial air of the convinced romantic.
Konwitschny’s Rhenish opens boldly, with considerable, brassy pomp as well as grinding undercurrents in the second strings. Largeness of scale and colossal sheets of wind sound raise the image of the Cologne Cathedral, whose interiors we will investigate in the fourth movement, which evolves into a dramatic study in brass, string, and tympanic contours, Konwitschny has us wondering how much Bruckner pedal owes to Schumann. The homogeneity of orchestral patina in the opening Lebhaft rivals the domestic contenders we had in Bernstein and Szell here at home. When the French horns set up the shimmering perorations we rest secure in a mighty pantheistic fortress. The deliberately plodding Scherzo becomes a study both in antiphonal syncopations and polyphony, the Gewandhaus tympanist having made his presence known. Bucolic reveries mark the Intermezzo (Nicht schnell) movement, a serenade in symmetrical phrases. Rollicking good spirits infuse the last movement, which gathers up all of Wordsworth’s golden daffodils into a mighty shower and aerial display. Anyone who can make this sing without its devolving into a string of marches is worth hearing, and this Gewandhaus ensemble is top flight. Recommended.
— Gary Lemco
