Leonard Bernstein - Schubert: Symphonies 5 & 8 (1989)

In this 1987 recording, Leonard Bernstein gives a highly personal account of the Unfinished, one that yields remarkable insights into the score's problematic expressiveness. His treatment of the first movement is reminiscent of Bruno Walter's in its pacing and tonal darkness. There are many interesting and unexpected touches, such as the use of extra vibrato to give a feverish, trembling quality to the viola accompaniment of the big tune. The pacing of the Andante is leisurely, and tonal color is again one of the conductor's chief concerns. Here, the reading imparts a delicate tension to the argument, together with a sense of motionlessness, breathlessness, and far-off distance such as one encounters in Bruckner. The climaxes are unerringly judged, but the ending is not as sunny or radiant as one is used to--Bernstein makes it instead more subdued--not really melancholy, but quietly, tenderly detached. The Concertgebouw strings play magnificently throughout, and the work of the Dutch winds is striking in its excellence. For a realization based on live takes in a difficult hall, the recording is extremely well-engineered. The coupling is a light and energetic, but expressively sharply profiled account of the Fifth. --Ted Libbey