Mozart
Symphonies Nos 36 ‘Linz’ & 38 ‘Prague’
Ensemble Resonanz/Riccardo Minasi
Harmonia Mundi HMM902703 71:56 mins
With period-instrument performance, as with any other approach to Mozart’s music, there are plenty of different options – all are valid, if they convince. Ensemble Resonanz and Riccardo Minasi have decided that giving a pair of symphonies a wall-to-wall playthrough isn’t sufficient in itself, and this is to their credit. Yet, unfortunately, these interpretations show what can happen when you go to an opposite extreme.
The overall idea seems to be to search out the groundbreaking side of Mozart’s genius – the music’s phenomenal, even subversive level of expression and invention. But these qualities are innate, and don’t need to be obsessively spotlit as they are here. From the very start of the ‘Linz’ Symphony, both in the first movement’s slow introduction and main Allegro spiritoso, there is constant fussy and exaggerated phrasing, point-making accentuation to match, plus over-forceful orchestral tone. The underlying tempo in one movement after another shifts so often that the line and flow is broken; there is an especially exasperating tendency to speed up when the music gets louder and slow down again when it quietens. This happens less in the Presto finales of each symphony, and here the superfast precision of the playing excels. Minasi likes to include the repeated sections indicated within the movements; with material of this quality, that’s fair enough, and helps to convey the immensity of Mozart’s mastery in the ‘Prague’ Symphony. Meanwhile, the graceless approach to moment-to-moment interpretation doesn’t let up. Malcolm Hayes