Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto and Symphony No 5 — ‘evangelist’s fiery rhetoric’
08 Sep 2017
“The Symphony No 5, the “Reformation”, labours over its Lutheran connections, but a performance as ardent as this one by the Freiburger Barockorchester under Pablo Heras-Casado has something of an evangelist’s fiery rhetoric.”
“The striking cover says it all. There’s no avoiding the piercing eyes of conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and violinist Isabelle Faust, challenging us to experience their revelatory take on one of the world’s most popular violin concertos.
The Hebrides Overture has its surprises, too. If Wagner was correct in hailing it as a masterpiece of landscape painting, then here it has undergone a major restoration where the musical palette shines anew. Check out that marvellous moment when time itself seems to pause, as the clarinets luxuriate in one of the composer’s most beguiling melodies.
The Reformation Symphony is far from first-rank Mendelssohn and only a very simpatico performance can illuminate these too often uninspired pages.
Freiburger Barockorchester achieves wonders with an impossible task, from the organ-like swell of its launching to an innocent Allegro vivace that might be looking wistfully over the Alps to sunny Italy.”