Mendelssohn: String Symponies Nos. 1-4 & 9 (2008)

German conductor Thomas Fey and his Heidelberger Sinfoniker have made a name for themselves with historically oriented performances of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, often featuring very quick tempi and sharp articulation along with period brasses. They're startling and bracing performances, and, when applied to Mendelssohn, the effect is even more unusual. For many listeners it will be sharply at odds with what they're expecting to hear. Is this because Fey has finally gone too far, or simply because Mendelssohn's music has ... Read More

German conductor Thomas Fey and his Heidelberger Sinfoniker have made a name for themselves with historically oriented performances of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, often featuring very quick tempi and sharp articulation along with period brasses. They're startling and bracing performances, and, when applied to Mendelssohn, the effect is even more unusual. For many listeners it will be sharply at odds with what they're expecting to hear. Is this because Fey has finally gone too far, or simply because Mendelssohn's music has been encrusted from the start with Victorian sentimentalism and was especially ripe for reinterpretation? Fey makes a good case for the latter. His earlier Mendelssohn discs programmed early string symphonies along with one of the composer's five mature symphonies, but this one is entirely devoted to the string symphonies, composed when Mendelssohn was between 11 and 13 years old. Instead of a fragile hothouse prodigy, Mendelssohn here appears as an ambitious young genius with... Read Less