MULTICHANNEL MENDELSSOHN

posted by James Reel

A review I wrote for Fanfare:

MENDELSSOHN Symphonies: No. 1; No. 4, “Italian.” Ruy Blas Overture • Andrew Litton, cond; Bergen PO • BIS 1584 (SACD: 67:07)

With so many fine recordings of Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony already in the catalog, there’s little justification for a new one unless it’s part of a Mendelssohn symphony cycle, of which there have been surprisingly few. Here is the middle panel in Andrew Litton’s triptych of Mendelssohn symphony SACDs for BIS, and it’s very fine indeed.

I’ll cover the “Italian” Symphony only briefly, because the main interest of this disc frankly lies in the rarer items. Litton’s performance holds up very well against most of the competition; it’s a lyrical approach, but always up to tempo—about as spirited as George Szell’s classic account, which Sony reissued about a decade ago on an SACD that is not compatible with standard players, but Litton is also a bit less brittle than Szell.

This is a smartly programmed disc. It begins with the overture Mendelssohn provided for Victor Hugo’s play Ruy Blas—a work the composer detested, yet he managed to write a stirring curtain-raiser for it that’s not nearly as popular as it was several decades ago. This leads to the First Symphony, which begins in a manner similar to Ruy Blas, but with even greater urgency. (If you like the early symphonies of Schubert, particularly the “Tragic,” you should enjoy Mendelssohn’s First.) In both the overture and the symphony, the Bergen Philharmonic’s performance under Litton is dynamic but not manic. Litton does not call attentionn to himself (which Mendelssohn would appreciate, since he was notoriously averse to “interpretation”); at the same time, Litton manages to achieve just the right spirit. He can stand back a bit without seeming uninvolved. Now, his tempo in the Scherzo and the final movement may be a little to fast for some listeners, but even so, Litton doesn’t take it to extremes; he knows how to ease off in the contrasting passages. (Besides which, orchestral music and opera were apparently played faster in the 19th century than they have been in our lifetime; just look at the early, fleet timings from Bayreuth for evidence.)

BIS provides typically detailed, natural, beautiful recorded sound in surround format, and very good liner notes by Horst A. Scholz. Whether as a whole Litton’s Mendelssohn cycle will fully measure up to the outstanding Abbado and Dohnanyi versions remains to be seen, but I would not hesitate to recommend this individual disc to anyone, whether they prefer two channels or five. James Reel