Each of these masterpieces dates from its composer’ symphonic beginnings,
and each marks the onset of a new era that doesn’t break with tradition, but still
goes its own way – and releases new forces in the process.
What ccould augur better for the NDR Sinfonieorchester’s first recording with its
new principal conductor, Thomas Hengelbrock?

Felix Mendelssohn’s first symphony is a masterpiece, a turbulent work that
opens the gates to its composer’s symphonic universe. Hengelbrock sees Mendels-
sohn’s symphonic début as a true stroke of genius: “On the one hand, the impe-
tuous wunderkind is very much in evidence, e.g. in the exuberant energy of the
outer movements. And on the other, a mastery of symphonic form and a gift for
refined instrumentation emerge here that literally take one’s breath away. At the
beginning, Mendelssohn mixes a dense alloy of the utmost homogeneity from the
wood-wind and the horns, before splitting the music up again into its individual parts.
In this way he creates a fascinating wealth of colour that points the way ahead Berlioz.”

For the interpretation of Robert Schumann’s Fourth Symphony in what
is assumed to be its original version, Hengelbrock chooses correspondingly more
fluid tempi that are probably in keeping with the composer’s original ideas. As the
autograph manuscript doesn’t contain any clear tempo information, the tempi have
been reconstructed based on the metronome numbers from other Schumann works
of the 1840’s. Despite for the most part rapid tempi, the Schumann doesn’t sparkle
with the carefree lightness and ease of the Mendelssohn symphony. Even the fast
figures seem to be weighed down by a hint of that melancholy that soon drags every
attempt at an upturn back down into the doldrums. Every moment of rejoicing already
contains a hint of sadness. This utterly Romantic topos of weltschmerz permeates the
entire composition, which combines in brilliant fashion imagination and thematic unity.

Adam Carter
English translation: Clive Williams