On ClassicsToday: John Elliot Gardiner's LSO Mendelssohn

CD From Hell: Gardiner’s Bloodless Mendelssohn Symphonies

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Mendelssohn is sometimes given short shrift for being a “nice” composer: Harmless, untroubled, and glib. That’s partly because the well-adjusted, prosperous, level-headed, and successful Mendelssohn doesn’t conform to our still ruling romantic ideal of the troubled, struggling, excess-driven, or mad genius. Mozart would have made the better Romantic composer; Mendelssohn the better Classical. On the Beethoven-Schumann-Liszt scale of romanticism, about the only thing Mendelssohn got right was dying young.... continue reading [insider content]

Sound samples below:

Mendelssohn, Symphony No.1, mvt.1, C.v.Dohnanyi, Vienna Philharmonic (Decca)

Mendelssohn, Symphony No.1, mvt.1, J.E.Gardiner, LSO (LSO Live)

Mendelssohn, Symphony No.1, mvt.1, H.v.Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic (DG)

Mendelssohn, Symphony No.2, mvt.4 (excerpt), J.W.deVriend, Netherlands SO (Challenge)

Mendelssohn, Symphony No.2, mvt.4 (excerpt), J.E.Gardiner, LSO (LSO Live)