Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s ongoing program to de-romanticize Schubert and Schumann has had largely unsatisfactory results. There’s nothing more fundamentally irritating than the faux-authenticity being pursued by so many of today’s conductors with ensembles using modern instruments. The result has been a barrage of performances and recordings that come across as inexpressive clones, having little of interest beyond the speedy tempos, dessicated string tone, and the lopsided balances created by pint-sized ensembles.
That said, this particular release had potential, if Dausgaard only had the musical sense to abandon his pedantry where the music demands it. Consider the “Unfinished” symphony. Its first movement comes across as a genuine, fiery allegro, and the result is revelatory, particularly in the volcanic development section. But the second subject fails to sing, and the Andante has to be the most asthmatic ever conceived, its thin and largely vibrato-less strings as unappealing as they are unstylish (and historically wrong). The transitions between sections sound particularly tentative and anemic.
The Ninth symphony offers less potential for interpretive revelations. Unlike the “Unfinished”, the quick movements of the Ninth have themes consisting of billions of repetitions of small thematic cells, and they positively beg for a certain flexibility of pulse. Playing everything at a basically uniform quickness, with dry, stabbing rhythms and all the repeats, simply makes the music sound relentlessly mechanical.
This is not to say that the Swedish Chamber Orchestra does not give Dausgaard everything he asks for: these musicians are extremely responsive, and their stamina is unflagging. The problem is that the music is simply much greater, and demands more interpretive imagination, than Dausgaard’s rigid approach permits. It’s a shame. Dausgaard is a fine conductor when he isn’t trying to be different for its own sake. There’s a lot of real talent here going to waste, and if he only let himself do justice to the music’s lyricism as well as its energy and drama, this might have been special.
