Franz Schmidt Symphonies 1-4 (P.Järvi)

[Ilja]

The Fourth with Kirill Petrenko and the BPO was released in a limited edition of one thousand copies on the BPO label.

Seriously: why? Does anyone still seriously think exclusivity is the way to go in classical music marketing?

[Alan Howe]

It's daft. Just plain daft. They'll soon be selling for millions...

[eschiss1]

btw the Petrenko hooks up with this earlier thread and, as noted therein, this Cologne performance conducted by Petrenko on YouTube of the 4th symphony from 2015. (As noted in another thread, Paävo Jarvi's performance with the hr-sinfonieorchester Frankfurt of the 4th can also be heard on YouTube. Same orchestra as in this DG set- don't know if it's the same performance. Uploaded on the orchestra's Youtube channel ("hr-sinfonieorchester"
), though, so presumably legitimate.)

[sdtom]

I am interested and don't care. I want the recording set

[eschiss1]

Erm... ok. I realize that, but is there something of general interest in your comment? (To paraphrase someone, there is often nothing less interesting than our individual [not collective] fantasies/desires/preferences...)

[MartinH]

Well....I've had the new Paavo Jarvi set a week now. Listened to it three times, with and without scores. Norman Lebrecht may have been right - did we need this particular set? No.

Up front, the playing is excellent (save for one irritating gaff in the horns shortly after the 5 minute mark of the third movement of the First.) The packaging is convenient - I do like these paper cartons more than big, crack-prone jewel boxes.

Now for the bad. The conducting: overall good, but I get the feeling that at the end of certain movements Jarvi needs a bigger statement. Part of the problem is Schmidt's; he liked abrupt endings. But some conductors make more the ends and it's more satisfying. Most annoying was the end of the first and last movements of the Third, the end of the first of the Second. Tempos in general are upbeat  - like his father's. But that ruins the second of the Third. Adagio this is not! At his tempos, the poco piu mossos (a bit more motion) are too fast. Other conductors go a real adagio and I like it so much better.

Then there's the sound. Now, DG has never been known as a high-fidelity showstopping sound company. And they're certainly not here. Woodwind details are buried in a wall of string sound. The nice interplay of the brass at the close of the Third is completely missing. The percussion makes no impact. The dynamic range isn't anything exceptional. It's too bad that the DG engineers haven't taken up SACD and give a listen to the extraordinary clarity that Chandos and Bis have achieved in that format.

When the set was announced with only three disks I was irritated because I assumed, dumb me, that they would split either the Second or Third over two disks. But no...the put nos. 3 and 4 on the same! That's an 85-minute disk! My high-end Marantz player had no problem fortunately. But playing it on a older Bose system...no such luck. Couldn't track it at all. Is using four disks that much more expensive? I imagine that there will be some people who won't be able to play that disk. I could be wrong.

So while I'm glad that Schmidt is getting more exposure, I was hoping for more. There's so much other music I want to have modern recordings of, and if this is the last Schmidt cycle, that's ok. We have the Naxos set with Sinaisky which is overall the best - great playing, conducting, sound. The Luisi is darn good, too and the Neeme Jarvi has superb playing and great sound. The Rajter we can ignore at this point. But I can dream: based on his performance of the Fourth in Dallas, I'd like Andrew Litton teamed with the London Symphony Orchestra on a wonderful Chandos SACD set - just don't record in the Barbican!

[Alan Howe]

Friends will note that I have merged this thread with the earlier one on the same subject.

[M. Yaskovsky]

Thanks, MartinH for your generous review. I didn't have high hopes for this set. The Chandos/Jarvi and the Naxos series will do fine for me. DGG's website on this set speaks of 'The audio album will be released on 11 September along with a visual album of Symphony No. 4 & the Intermezzo'. Does that mean a DVD is included?  https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/diverse-kuenstler/news/paavo-jaervi-rediscovers-franz-schmidt-the-complete-symphonies-259956

The Berliner Philharmoniker will release a recording and video from the perfomance of Schmidt's 4th BTW.

[Alan Howe]

MusicWeb have published a much more positive review:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/Oct/Schmidt-sys-4838336.htm

So far only the 3-CD set seems to have been released.

[Alan Howe]

Gramophone magazine features the new cycle as their Recording of the Month. They could be wrong, of course...

[dhibbard]

what is your opinion of the Naxos series of the same with Vassily Sinaisky conducting the Malmo Symphony?

[Joachim Raff]

Its a bit of a shame this cycle. Why on earth didn't they record Chaconne? Its an absolute masterpiece of just less than 30 minutes long.   Question: has Jarvi brought any thing new to the party?

[Alan Howe]

Question: has Järvi brought any thing new to the party?

Dunno. I'm going to find out, though...

[MartinH]

Not as far as I'm concerned. The Naxos set contains ALL of Schmidt's orchestral music. The playing is fine throughout - the Malmo group doesn't sound one bit inferior to the Frankfurt band. I still think the DG recorded sound isn't that great - maybe it's just my age, ears...But it reminds me of that early Supraphony recording of the 3rd - performance excellent, sound not excellent. The Fourth is always the capstone - it can and should be a gut wrenching affair. What you get here is very professional, but Mehta, Sieghart, Kreizberg all probe deeper. An off-air recording I have with Hans Swarowsky is quite powerful, too. But I could be wrong. Won't be the first time I disagree with the critics. After all, I still think Bernard Herrmann's recording of Raff's Lenore is the best!

[Alan Howe]

Now, DG has never been known as a high-fidelity showstopping sound company.

Really? Never? Hmm...

It's too bad that the DG engineers haven't taken up SACD and give a listen to the extraordinary clarity that Chandos and Bis have achieved in that format.

Well, the vast majority of listeners don't have SACD playback equipment. I certainly don't and there are plenty of perfectly fine-sounding recordings going back years before its advent. Mehta still sounds superb in No.4, after all.

That said, it could well be that the sound on the new set is no better than average. Speaking personally, as long as the sonics are decent, I'm probably more interested in the performances. We'll see...