COMPOSERS: MendelssohnWeberNicolaiMarschnerWagner
LABELS: DG
ALBUM TITLE: German Overtures
WORKS: Overtures
PERFORMER: Vienna Philharmonic OrchestraChristian Thielemann
CATALOGUE NO: 474 5022
Identified firmly as he is with German
Romanticism, Christian Thielemann
is clearly at home in the repertoire
offered on this disc. Nor does he
disappoint: the Weber, Marschner and
Wagner overtures are all dispatched
with the kind of volkstŸmlich
swagger in which the genre deals
and which was to reach its apogee in
the self-aggrandising parades of Die
Meistersinger von NŸrnberg.
Happily, though, Thielemann’s
approach is not one-dimensional.
He captures the aura of the spirit
world in Euryanthe and Oberon, and
the revolutionary fervour as well as
the pomp of Rienzi. Mendelssohn’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream has an
apt lightness of touch, with fairy-like
delicacy at the end. Nicolai’s Die
Lustigen Weiber von Windsor also has
a buoyancy appropriate both for the
subject (Shakespeare’s Merry Wives)
and for the strong Italian influence
on the composer. Marschner’s Hans
Heiling, too, has Italianate subsidiary
material, which Thielemann handles
lyrically, almost balletically.
The Vienna Philharmonic plays
with its customary polish and finesse,
producing something like a Viennese
lilt in the Nicolai. Barry Millington