Felix MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY (1809-1847)
Symphony No 1 in C minor, Op 11 (1824) [29:47]
Symphony No 3 in A minor “Scottish”, Op 56 (1842) [36:09]
Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
rec. Örebro Konserthus, Sweden, 9-14 June 2019
Hybrid SACD 5.0 surround/stereo; reviewed in surround sound.
BIS BIS-2469 SACD [66:26]
This disc contains Mendelssohn’s first and last symphonies for full orchestra. The numbering of the five symphonies, very misleading, results from the publication dates rather than composition dates. Mendelssohn at first saw the C minor Symphony as his thirteenth. He was including the twelve string symphonies which we now tend to view as separate juvenilia. He was justified in clearly writing No 13 on the autograph score. The last of the string symphonies was composed only three months earlier, and several of them were just as long. No. 8 was even rescored, with wind instruments added. Significantly, the composer gave the present symphony an opus number and labelled it No 1 when published in 1834, so he must have seen it as a step forward from the earlier pieces, essentially student symphonies. Those were not published during his lifetime; they were rediscovered in an archive in 1950.
Horst Scholz, the author of the extensive booklet essay, sees the First as new departure for the fifteen-year-old Mendelssohn. He is concerned not with his contrapuntal training but with the legacy of Mozart, Haydn and even Beethoven. Scholz sees the choice of C minor as historically significant, though that ignores the fact that two of the earlier works (or three including an odd movement) were in that key. Nevertheless, there is a new weight and vitality in this piece, fully brought out by Dausgaard’s vigorous direction and his excellent Swedish Chamber Orchestra. There are very busy passages for the strings in particular in the opening and closing movements that excitingly stretch players to the limit.
The Scottish is an altogether larger work conceptually, inspired by the composer’s visits to Scotland. He dedicated the work to Queen Victoria whose friendship he enjoyed towards the end of his life. He played for her and Prince Albert on several occasions at Buckingham Palace, and he presented the royal couple with a special arrangement of the Scottish Symphony for piano duet. This performance is as good as any I have heard. The SCO play in the fast passages for all they are worth. Dausgaard clearly expects one hundred percent, and it sounds like he mostly gets it. I sometimes wondered if the faster tempi were a little too brisk, but I always prefer vitality to caution.
The use of a chamber orchestra results in a more equal balance between strings and winds, which I suspect was Mendelssohn’s intention. The BIS recording is not the most transparent or spacious I have heard, but it serves the music well, with only slight loss of detail.
Dave Billinge
