Christoph Spering, Das Neue Orchester - Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No.2 'Lobgesang' (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 291 Mb | Total time: 64:48 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Opus 111 / Naïve | # OPS 2030 | Recorded: 1993
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 291 Mb | Total time: 64:48 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Opus 111 / Naïve | # OPS 2030 | Recorded: 1993
Lobgesang, Mendelssohn's ''Hymn of Praise'', is no longer a rarity on disc, with a dozen versions listed. That makes it timely that Spering, following up the success of Herreweghe's Harmonia Mundi version of Elijah (4/94), here presents a performance in period style. When the composer's preference for fast speeds is well documented, and has so convincingly been followed up by his latterday successor at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kurt Masur, it is perhaps surprising that Spering is far more relaxed in his choice of tempos. His overall timing—64'48'' as against Masur's 58'32''—shows what a wide discrepancy there is, and in no way does he let the music drag or become sentimental. For with clean, crisp textures this is a most refreshing performance, full of incidental beauties, of a work that for several generations was regarded as too sweet on the one hand, over-inflated on the other. Spering's clean directness and his obvious affection for the music reverses that jaundiced judgement.