Schubert Symphonies from Michi Gaigg

[jayne lee wilson]

Schubert Symphonies from Gaigg...... and Jacobs....

I greeted this set with great anticipation after sampling a few excerpts, but, listening more closely, was left with a sense of disappointment after No.1.
This is just too cool and disengaged, lacking tautness and virtuosity, as if the orchestra weren't quite confident in their own abilities.
On to No.2, and in (i) I again worried about he lack of articulacy in rapid string passages, the tendency of inner lines to fade away; but there is greater excitement and slow movement is much better - tender and eloquent; the scherzo is stormy indeed. The finale is superbly done - the thrillingly punchy winds drum n’ bass textures driving home those dramatic modulations in the central episode.
In No.3, after a few days of this live cycle recorded in a single week, the orchestra find the confidence to deliver a thrillingly fresh, powerful, songful account.

So live recordings with some inconsistency…..but a radically different orchestral balance and timbre, winds foregrounded, brass and timps very hardhitting....
No completions or adaptations or orchestrations (all of which I usually enjoy) here....simply every note Schubert set down...

The Rene Jacobs B’Rock readings (PENTATONE) are a good comparative reference & an easier recommend, similar sonorities but obviously tauter, sharper, more articulate and easily on top of all the notes, more schwung sometimes too (compare the andante of No.1). But in a slightly drier, smaller acoustic, where the Orfeos are splendidly spacious - and live; I feel drawn to them.

OK - on to No4! The playing style should suit it well. After the ICA Harnoncourt set a year ago, I didn't think I would revisit this rep for some years, but now, once again - I can never hear too much Schubert…




Schubert: Complete Symphonies & Fragments
L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg
Released on 19/11/2021 by CPO

• QOBUZ LOSSLESS

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think Schubert symphonies are a real test of a conductor’s mettle . There’s no hiding place . Nothing flashy to impress with - pure music. The same is true of the piano sonatas . Not virtuosic but intensely musically demanding,.,

[RichardB]

These recordings not only are live but also sound live, which is something that producers and engineers these days often try to minimise. A case in point is the 9th (or the 8th as it's called here) which has always been one of the few Schubert works I have difficulty with, especially the last movement, which usually seems to me like an unhappy combination of symphonic rhetoric with Schubert's tendency to extend the "moments" of his music far beyond what any other composer dared to do before Bruckner. Essential to overcoming this impression for me is a concentration on the expressive colour of each moment, allowing it to become chamber music - in the way Celibidache used to talk about, but achieving this by using the delicate and highly differentiated timbres of period instruments and playing techniques, rather than by slowing things down. See from 5:22 to 5:50 in the slow movement, which feels as if these luminous and otherworldly sounds could go on for ever, while at the same time you're aware that they're taking place in a real space at a real event. At last this symphony makes sense to me.

[jayne lee wilson]

These recordings not only are live but also sound live, which is something that producers and engineers these days often try to minimise. A case in point is the 9th (or the 8th as it's called here) which has always been one of the few Schubert works I have difficulty with, especially the last movement, which usually seems to me like an unhappy combination of symphonic rhetoric with Schubert's tendency to extend the "moments" of his music far beyond what any other composer dared to do before Bruckner. Essential to overcoming this impression for me is a concentration on the expressive colour of each moment, allowing it to become chamber music - in the way Celibidache used to talk about, but achieving this by using the delicate and highly differentiated timbres of period instruments and playing techniques, rather than by slowing things down. See from 5:22 to 5:50 in the slow movement, which feels as if these luminous and otherworldly sounds could go on for ever, while at the same time you're aware that they're taking place in a real space at a real event. At last this symphony makes sense to me.

Absolutely.... I was going to say, the sound here has exceptional immediacy and tangibilty, and spaciousness - you really can "see" the performers in a 3D acoustic.
As you say, those differentiated colurs and timbres come through very vividly as an essential part of the musical flow and continuity. This really does draw you back for more.

On No.4 and No.5 right now, more on these soon, saving the later works up with some anticipation....!
The timings (61') suggest plenty of repeats in No. 9.....AGT...(and I will always call it the 9th, now I know D729)....

***
BTW Richard, have you heard the Jacobs B'Rock recordings? (2/3, 4/5, 1/6...) I'd love to know what you think there...
Slightly awkward moniker isn't it?........I guess our René liked the "Rock" part....

Crack ensemble for sure.

[Barbirollians]

Absolutely.... I was going to say, the sound here has exceptional immediacy and tangibilty, and spaciousness - you really can "see" the performers in a 3D acoustic.
As you say, those differentiated colurs and timbres come through very vividly as an essential part of the musical flow and continuity. This really does draw you back for more.

On No.4 and No.5 right now, more on these soon, saving the later works up with some anticipation....!
The timings (61') suggest plenty of repeats in No. 9.....AGT...(and I will always call it the 9th, now I know D729)....

***
BTW Richard, have you heard the Jacobs B'Rock recordings? (2/3, 4/5, 1/6...) I'd love to know what you think there...
Slightly awkward moniker isn't it?........I guess our René liked the "Rock" part....

Crack ensemble for sure.

What is the conductor’s CV ? Never heard of them.

Still have to listen to the Harnoncourt on ICA Classics.

[RichardB]

BTW Richard, have you heard the Jacobs B'Rock recordings?

No, I'm generally a bit suspicious of René Jacobs as a conductor so I've given those a wide berth.

[jayne lee wilson]

What is the conductor’s CV ? Never heard of them.

Still have to listen to the Harnoncourt on ICA Classics.

A very distinguished musician indeed..... read all about it....

https://www.lorfeo.com/en/michi-gaigg/

She and the Orfeo released a separate Schubert 5 with rarely-heard overtures a few years back... exceptional musically and sonically, and reviewed well all over.

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/schubert-concert-overtures-symphony-no-5-lorfeo-barockorchester/0886443009127

Her discog is quite extensive....

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=michi+gaigg&i=boutique

I'm finding it hard to get past the new 4 and 5 because they are so marvellous, the cycle (Live, recorded in under a week at Hohenems) takes a little while to settle but these reach even greater heights...

Jacobs (including 2 SACDs) is unmissable too......the B'Rock Rocks!
Each album includes very detailed analyses of the symphonies by Jacobs himself - truly insightful into Schubert's structures and processes. Worth buying for them alone etc....

[Barbirollians]

No, I'm generally a bit suspicious of René Jacobs as a conductor so I've given those a wide berth.

Me too

[jayne lee wilson]

Me too

Does this include anything from his vast and distinguished Early and Baroque discography, his Telemann, Bach, Monteverdi, A. Scarlatti?
Or his wonderful late Mozart Symphonies with the Freiburg Baroque, the 38 of which was Tom Service's very carefully observed BaL choice?

I first became aware of his work with Alessandro Scarlatti's marvellous Oratorio a 6 Voci, Il Primo Omicidio, highly praised by LS in the Gramophone, and a work that remains very dear to me now. Directing the AAMB, Jacobs sang the countertenor Voce di Dio role himself. Telemann's stunning Music Drama Orpheus soon followed to equally great acclaim. I couldn't stop playing it.
His Missa Solemnis was released on the HM 20/27 series, and highly impressive it is. A lovable Haydn Seasons.... But there are so many examples.

The Classical Music catalogue would be a much poorer place without this artist and the wonderful ensembles he has worked with or created, of which the B'Rock Orchestra's Schubert is just the latest, and particularly exciting, example. His extraordinary notes to the Symphonies reveal a highly imaginative and insightful yet deeply scholarly musical mind.

Jacobs is an artist who loves adventure and discovery: doing new things, or familiar things in new ways. To say you are "suspicious" of him is an almost meaningless, even quasi-prejudicial comment. As if you wish to register a vague discontent, without having the courage (or perhaps the wider listening experience) to be more specific about it.

[cloughie]

Does this include anything from his vast and distinguished Early and Baroque discography, his Telemann, Bach, Monteverdi, A. Scarlatti?
Or his wonderful late Mozart Symphonies with the Freiburg Baroque, the 38 of which was Tom Service's very carefully observed BaL choice?

I first became aware of his work with Alessandro Scarlatti's marvellous Oratorio a 6 Voci, Il Primo Omicidio, highly praised by LS in the Gramophone, and a work that remains very dear to me now. Directing the AAMB, Jacobs sang the countertenor Voce di Dio role himself. Telemann's stunning Music Drama Orpheus soon followed to equally great acclaim. I couldn't stop playing it.
His Missa Solemnis was released on the HM 20/27 series, and highly impressive it is. A lovable Haydn Seasons.... But there are so many examples.

The Classical Music catalogue would be a much poorer place without this artist and the wonderful ensembles he has worked with or created, of which the B'Rock Orchestra's Schubert is just the latest, and particularly exciting, example. His extraordinary notes to the Symphonies reveal a highly imaginative and insightful yet deeply scholarly musical mind.

Jacobs is an artist who loves adventure and discovery: doing new things, or familiar things in new ways. To say you are "suspicious" of him is an almost meaningless, even quasi-prejudicial comment. As if you wish to register a vague discontent, without having the courage (or perhaps the wider listening experience) to be more specific about it.

For me these go into the seriously over-hipped category on a par with the SCO prom 39/40/41! I’m not anti hipp, The LCP Norrington late Mozart Syms are very acceptable, lettingbthe breathe without being ‘in your face’ and unnaturally recorded.

[Bryn]

For me these go into the seriously over-hipped category on a par with the SCO prom 39/40/41!

Too close to the original?

[RichardB]

Does this include anything from his vast and distinguished Early and Baroque discography, his Telemann, Bach, Monteverdi, A. Scarlatti?

He certainly brought a lot of relatively unknown early baroque repertoire into the spotlight and his recording of Monteverdi's Poppea remains my top choice for that work - being a singer himself he draws on a deep understanding of the workings of music like that. On the other hand, when it comes to the instrumentation of baroque music he isn't above retouching things to what might be considered an unnecessarily intrusive degree, which is a major minus point in the aforementioned Monteverdi opera, but is also on show in his interpretations of later music like operas by Keiser and Telemann, so, given that I don't have unlimited time at my disposal, I'm afraid his name on a CD cover is going to make me swipe left as it were. Not so Michi Gaigg, whose recordings of Mendelssohn's string symphonies haven't yet been mentioned - those are excellent.

[cloughie]

Too close to the original?

We can only speculate!

[RichardB]

We can only speculate!

... although that speculation can be from a position of knowledge or from a position of ignorance, and it seems clear which one is preferable. Some things we know fairly securely about Mozart: the (varying) size of the orchestras his music was played by; the kinds of acoustics in which they played, the instruments the music was played on; what his own father had to say about string playing, and not only this, in his (in its time very widely read and used) treatise on violin playing. So any "speculation" that doesn't make use of those readily available items of knowledge might be described as idle.

[gurnemanz]

A most enjoyable Telemann Orpheus from Michi Gaigg and (appropriately) L'Orfeo Barockorchester, which I got as part of the DHM/Sony Classical 30 CD Telemann Masterworks box (knockdown price a few years ago) - Dorothee Mields excellent as Orasia. Preferred to the Jacobs version (which I don't know) by some critics.

Re Schubert Symphonies, I hope to get around to listening to Gaigg, which this thread has alerted me to. Most recent acquisition was a Flac download of the recommendable Blomstedt set on offer at Presto