{"id":46433,"date":"2017-07-25T14:26:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T18:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=46433"},"modified":"2017-07-25T14:26:20","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T18:26:20","slug":"record-keeping-nezet-seguin-takes-on-mendelssohn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2017\/07\/25\/record-keeping-nezet-seguin-takes-on-mendelssohn\/","title":{"rendered":"RECORD KEEPING |\u00a0N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin Takes On Mendelssohn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mendelssohn:
Mendelssohn: Symphonies 1-5. Karina Gauvin & Regula M\u00fchlemann, sopranos. Daniel Behle, tenor. RIAS Kammerchor. Chamber Orchestra of Europe\/Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin. DG 479337 (3 CDs). Total Time: 200:10.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe is a terrific band. Player for player they can match any orchestra anywhere, and as an ensemble it is remarkable for its precision and for its stylistic excellence. Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin has been working with the COE for years both in concert and on recordings. Most of his Mozart opera cycle is being done with the COE and they have also given us a complete recording of the Schumann symphonies (DG 4792437). This new Mendelssohn set is based on a series of concerts they gave together last year at the new Philharmonie in Paris. The playing is superb and Yannick brings his usual energy and attention to detail to the project.<\/p>\n

And yet, I do have reservations about these recordings. We know from contemporary accounts that in Mendelssohn\u2019s lifetime these symphonies would have been played by orchestras that were small compared to the behemoths that grace our great concert halls today. While the Toronto Symphony Orchestra usually puts an orchestra of 90-100 players on the stage of Roy Thomson Hall on any given night, Mendelssohn\u2019s orchestra would have been more like 30-50 players in the 1830s and 40s. It follows that a large chamber orchestra like the COE is just about the right size for the Mendelssohn symphonies. I don\u2019t know exactly how many players took part in these recordings but we do have some evidence to help us. The photo in the booklet for these recordings shows 35 musicians, but on YouTube we can see some of the live performances on which these recordings are based. The video for the \u201cReformation\u201d symphony shows an orchestra of about 48 players. As I have said, that is probably just right for the music. My problem is that the orchestra sounds <\/em>too small on the recordings. There is no problem with the winds and brass: there is one player to a part and that is as it should be. It is the string section that can be reduced or increased as required by the repertoire. But with a total of 48 musicians there should be plenty of string players. I suspect that the source of the problem is not the number of string players but the way they have been recorded. For whatever reason, the engineers have decided to mic the strings very closely, to the point where we seem to be hearing individual players rather than the whole section of first violins, second violins, etc. Another factor could be the acoustics of the Paris Philharmonie, a 2,500 seat concert hall which opened in 2015. For whatever reason, the strings on these recordings lack fullness and warmth as compared with, for example, John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony (LSO Live 0765 & 0769) on some recent recordings of many of these same symphonies.<\/p>\n

As to the performances themselves, they give more than a nod to period performance practice\u2014many passages conspicuously avoid the use of vibrato, tempos are generally on the quick side, notes tend to be cut short, swells are added\u2014and N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin has obviously done his homework on the various editions available. For the \u201cReformation\u201d symphony, for example, he uses the Christopher Hogwood edition which restores some of the cuts Mendelssohn made after the first performance in 1832. I am not convinced that it is a wise decision to ignore the composer\u2019s own revisions, but the wind-dominated lead-in to the chorale statement at the beginning of the last movement is quite effective. On the whole the performance is carefully prepared and executed if a little under-powered and I do like N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin\u2019s moderate tempo for the second movement. Too many conductors take this movement way too fast\u2014admittedly, the tempo marking of \u201cAllegro vivace\u201d<\/em> gives them some encouragement\u2014when a slower tempo is needed to fully realise the nobility and expressive power of the music.<\/p>\n

The Symphony No. 2 \u201cHymn of Praise\u201d with soloists and chorus is one of my favourite Mendelssohn pieces and N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin and his forces perform it with energy and sensitivity. The choruses are very well done with the chorale \u201cNun danket alle Gott\u201d beautifully shaped. Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin lacks the purity of sound I like to hear in this music but she makes up for it with the unique plaintive quality of her singing. German tenor Daniel Behle is impressive in both the lyrical and dramatic elements in his music. This is a good performance but I still prefer the weightier version conducted by Herbert von Karajan (DG 429664). His slower tempos, especially at the beginning and the end of the first movement, give us a view of Mendelssohn that has a lot in common with the Schubert Masses and even with Beethoven\u2019s Missa Solemnis<\/em>, not to mention Bruckner\u2019s choral works.<\/p>\n

The recording of the \u201cScottish\u201d symphony is a great disappointment. The intimacy of the opening bars is beautifully realised but the stormy sections later in the movement suffer from the aforementioned problems with the string sound. Violins are thin and scrawny and the hard and dry timpani sticks become increasingly annoying. The slow movement lacks gravitas<\/em> and again the sound of the timpani is unpleasant and intrusive. The glorious coda at the end of the symphony is too quick for my taste and seriously anticlimactic. And why are the final chords at the end of both the \u201cScottish\u201d and the \u201cReformation\u201d symphonies so apologetic?<\/p>\n

The performance of the \u201cItalian\u201d symphony is lively and joyous, and the virtuosity of the COE musicians is much in evidence, especially in the final Saltarello.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Symphony No. 1, composed when Mendelssohn was only 15 years old, is played with great exuberance. But strangely, for an integral set of this type, the scherzo movement, an orchestration by Mendelssohn of the scherzo from the string octet and which the composer substituted for the menuetto for a performance in England in 1829, is not included. Nor is any comment made in the notes. Surely both the menuetto and the scherzo should have been recorded.<\/p>\n

For more RECORD KEEPING, see\u00a0HERE<\/u><\/a><\/span>.<\/h3>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin brings his usual energy and attentiveness to this project; nevertheless there may be more than one missing element. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":46434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6439,77,5739,51,52],"tags":[9698,2191,3627],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/07\/Mendelssohn_SYMPHONIES_DGG_2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-c4V","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46433"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46452,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46433\/revisions\/46452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46433"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=46433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}