"The Franz Schmidt Project" by Jonathan Berman & BBC National Orchestra of Wales

[alberto]

If I remember well, Kirill Petrenko performance of n.4 with the BPO was released as Cd in the limited number of one thousand copies destined to the subscribers of one year of BPO concerts in streaming.

[Alan Howe]

I entirely agree with MartinH.

Here's a brief excerpt from the BPO/Petrenko performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=MyhFVnfwUqU

Utterly stupendous!

[vesteel]

BPO's Digital Concert Hall is now free for everyone for a few weeks - You can watch their Schmidt 4 performance here https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/51178

[Alan Howe]

Oh, great. Thanks!

[FBerwald]

The 1st CD will come out on 26th of March, 2021
Symphony No. 1
http://www.loganartsmanagement.com/jonathan-berman.html

[Alan Howe]

This indicates that it's a download/streaming only release:
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=ACC-505441

[Viennalover]

I've just heard this recording on apple music. It sounds phenomenal. I've never been that into the first symphony - but I loved it this time. The orchestra sounds like an old school Austrian band.....very tender and wonderfully nuanced and Berman brings out so much I'd never heard in the score - even the bits which I though didn't make. any sense he finds a way to make them sound exactly right. I'm completely sold. Can't wait for the next instalments. https://music.apple.com/gb/album/schmidt-symphony-no-1-in-e-major/1555115626

[Alan Howe]

Now listed for download (only) at Presto:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8896644--schmidt-symphony-no-1-in-e-major

[Alan Howe]

...which I have duly downloaded myself. And I'm not so sure. The sound is rather 'comfortable' - the timps are barely audible, for example, and the upper strings perhaps sound somewhat under-nourished. All perfectly good, but certainly not outstanding. For comparison purposes I tried Järvi (senior) in Detroit on Chandos and what was immediately noticeable was his livelier tempi - he just keeps the music going where Berman rather sits back (which, of course, is a matter of preference).

Anyway, I'm not convinced from a first hearing that Berman offers us anything new. And he's definitely not as exciting as Järvi. Still, it's good to have another competitor in this fine symphony - and others may like it more that I.

[MartinH]

I sure hope this downloading only is the way we're heading. I really want to hear this new recording, but I want a physical disk. There's a new set of Rachmaninoff symphonies on Sony that's supposedly dynamite - but alas, it's only available for download, for now anyway.

[Mark Thomas]

but I want a physical disk

They'll be getting rarer and rarer I think. Th economics of producing physical product for a very small global market (a few thousand at best worldwide for the sort of repertoire we're interested in) are making it less and less viable. For today's youngsters a CD is almost as archaic as a shellac 78 - music is a wholly virtual experience for them.

[TerraEpon]

A few days ago I saw someone talking about something a parent did "in the days of CDs" as if it was a long time ago.

[Alan Howe]

And so back to the topic, please.

[Alan Howe]

..and here, after a wait of 2½ years, is the complete set on CD - on the Accentus label:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9543195--franz-schmidt-the-symphonies

My first point of comparison was the slow movement of No.4. Do take a moment to compare how Mehta gives the music (marked 'adagio') time to breath, whereas Berman almost hustles the music along:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8050349--schmidt-symphony-no-4-schoenberg-chamber-symphony  (Mehta)

Of course, I learnt the 4th Symphony 50 years ago from Mehta's classic recording, so maybe I'm just biased...

[adriano]

The first complete Schmidt Symphonies (on the Slovak Opus label) were realised in 1987 by Maestro Ludovit Rajter and the Radio Bratislava Symphony Orchestra (later Slovak Radio SO). Schmidt and Josef Marx were Rajter's composition teachers at the Vienna Hochschule. In other words, these recordings can be considered as quite authoritative. No big show, but deeply felt.
Rajter was also the founder of the Slowak Philarmonic. Before Slovakia's indipendence he was a non.convinced Communist (therefore considered a "supect person") and got his rehabilitation only in 1991. He was a higly cultivated person, I admired him. In the 1980s he had the reputation of being the oldest active conductor of the world. I attended a few of his Bratislava Philharmonic concerts, an orchestra which was managed at that time by his wife.
And it was thanks to Rajter that the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra had become such a super orchestra. I could personally take advantage of this - and will never forget the great time between 1987 and 2000 in which I could record 21 CDS with this ensemble.