COMPOSERS: Beethoven/Schumann
LABELS: DG Masters
WORKS: Symphony No. 5 in C minor; Symphony No. 3 in E flat (Rhenish)
PERFORMER: Los Angeles PO/Carlo Maria Giulini
CATALOGUE NO: 445 502-2 DDD (1982)
Giulini celebrated his 80th birthday last year. Trained as a viola player, this doyen of the 19th-century operatic and orchestral repertoire invariably highlights the inner textures of his string sections, and promptly does so in this lyrically warm account of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony – a little ponderous in places, but then he is renowned for his slow tempi. He elicits marvellous playing from the LAPO, in particular its virtuosic horn section, and presents a rugged performance of Beethoven’s masterpiece in the true Furtwänglerian tradition. Christopher Fifield
Beethoven/Schumann: Symphony No. 5 in C minor; Symphony No. 3 in E flat (Rhenish)
Giulini celebrated his 80th birthday last year. Trained as a viola player, this doyen of the 19th-century operatic and orchestral repertoire invariably highlights the inner textures of his string sections, and promptly does so in this lyrically warm account of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony – a little ponderous in places, but then he is renowned for his slow tempi. He elicits marvellous playing from the LAPO, in particular its virtuosic horn section, and presents a rugged performance of Beethoven’s masterpiece in the true Furtwänglerian tradition. Christopher Fifield
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:15 pm