When the range of available alternatives is already bewilderingly wide – modern or period instruments; large orchestra or chamber band; swift, light-fingered performances or more emphatic, heavyweight ones – there has to be a good reason nowadays for a record company to release a new cycle of the Beethoven symphonies, especially from an unfamiliar orchestra with a conductor, who, in the UK at least, is still relatively unknown. And while there is little wrong with these performances from Antonello Manacorda and the Kammerakademie Potsdam, which appear to be a mix of concert and studio recordings, it’s hard to discern what might recommend them above any of the myriad existing versions.
Though it’s described as a chamber orchestra, the Kammerakademie Potsdam seems to be a sizable band. More than 50 string players are listed in the accompanying booklet, though clearly not all of them were used in each symphony. According to an interview with Manacorda they sometimes use gut strings, sometimes metal, and in these performances the trumpets and horns are natural, but the woodwind modern.
The result is certainly effective: the sound is lean, bright and flexible, the articulation of the strings wonderfully crisp but with plenty of weight when needed, and the balance between wind and strings perfectly equitable. What the performances seem to lack is real character. Manacorda generally favours fastish tempi, but there’s still a lack of sheer excitement in some movements, such as the finale of the Seventh Symphony. It’s all perfectly efficient, and perfectly forgettable.
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