Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 (CD review)

Claudio Abbado, London Symphony Orchestra. HDTT remastered.

The late Italian conductor Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) was an enormously prolific musician, recording as music director of the La Scala Opera orchestra, the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Vienna State Opera orchestra, the Lucerne Festival orchestra, the European Union Youth Orchestra, and the Berlin Philharmonic. It's a wonder he had time to breathe.

In any case, as you might guess, he recorded some material more than once as he went along, including Mendelssohn's two most-popular symphonies, Nos. 3 and 4. First he did them for Decca in 1968 and then for DG in the mid 80's, both with the London Symphony. For good measure, he did No. 4 yet again for Sony with Berlin in the mid 90's. What we have in the present disc is a recent transfer of the Decca recordings of Nos. 3 and 4 from HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers), and because I have always preferred these earlier Abbado recordings to his newer ones, I welcome the HDTT transfer wholeheartedly.

German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) completed his Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56 in 1842, the last of five symphonies he wrote, despite the numbering. He called it his "Scottish" symphony because he started writing it over a dozen years earlier after a visit to Scotland. It doesn't actually sound all that Scottish, though; it's more like a brief, musical impression the composer got of the country, an impression he expanded over the years.

The music begins with a lyrical opening movement, picks up steam with an infectious Scherzo, then a liltingly graceful Adagio, and a vivacious finale. Maestro Abbado and the London Symphony add a zip and flair to the music, an energy that most other conductors only hint at. Although he doesn't exactly skip over the more-poetic aspects of the music, he tends to emphasize the sparkle and pizzazz more. Abbado's realization of the score is one that keeps the listener involved at all times.

This is not to say, however, that I favor Abbado's reading over all others. My own number-one choice continues to be an even older recording (1960) by Peter Maag, also with the LSO. Maag seems to capture the charm and delight of the music better than any conductor before or since. But not to worry: HDTT have it covered, too, with their own excellent transfer of the Maag recording.

Claudio Abbado

Mendelssohn premiered his Symphony No. 4 "Italian" in 1833 after a trip to Italy, but he never published it in his lifetime. The first movement Allegro is probably the best-recognized of all the music Mendelssohn wrote for his symphonies, filled with sunny good cheer and zest. For the second-movement Andante, music scholars think the many religious processions Mendelssohn saw in Rome may have inspired him. Then, the composer gives us a delicate minuet, followed by a conclusion of whirlwind proportions and a glitter reminiscent of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Here, too, Abbado provides a fresh, dynamic, invigorating approach, with the conductor giving the music's more openly exciting moments perhaps a little greater weight than the more sensitive ones. In both symphonies the London Symphony plays with a uniform spontaneity and spotless ensemble.

So, would I recommend Abbado's "Italian" over all others? Again, not quite. His recording is good, but I'm happy with it as a companion, a complement, to Otto Klemperer's 1960 recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI). Klemperer takes a more leisurely approach to the score but one that to my ear captures more of the bright Italian landscape.

Decca Records producer John Mordler and engineer Kenneth Wilkinson recorded the symphonies in February 1968 at Kingsway Hall, London. HDTT transferred the music from a 15ips 2-track tape in 2017.

But here's the thing. It was just back in 2007 that the Decca folks themselves re-released the music in a 96kHz/24-bit remastering. So the question now is which to buy. On the one hand, you may find the Decca remastering very slightly clearer, better focused, but you may also find it a touch harder sounding and a bit more difficult to find as Decca have apparently removed it from the catalogue. On the other hand, you may not think the HDTT transfer sounds much different from Decca's own, and you'd be right. In a level-matched comparison using two separate machines, I could hardly tell the difference. More important, you'll find the HDTT product more readily available in a variety of formats on disc or digital download.

Anyway, the sound (be it from HDTT or Decca) is big and bold in the old Decca tradition. There's a good deal of room ambience from Kingsway Hall, which lends a note of reality to the recording. Depth perception is moderately good, and instrument detailing is fine, if a tad rounded in the spacious environment. You get imaging typical of the era, too, a tad close-up and compartmentalized, with excellent left-to-right stereo spread. It all works out and offers a fairly natural representation of a concert hall sound.

For further information on HDTT products, prices, discs, and downloads in a variety of formats, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below: