SCHUBERT Symphonies: No. 5; No. 6; No. 8, “Unfinished”; No. 9, “Great” • Sandor Végh, cond; Salzburg Camerata Academica • PHOENIX EDITION 437 (2 CDs: 140:08)

These performances are hard to categorize because they combine some of the attributes of “modern” Schubert performances—that is, they seem informed by an awareness of classical performance practice—with some tempo choices that reflect an older, more leisurely attitude. The first movement of the “Unfinished” is on the slow side, felt in a solid three beats per bar. Likewise, the introduction to the Ninth is quite deliberate, and its second movement is taken much more moderately than its Andante con moto marking suggests. I am usually partial to speedier tempos in the Eighth and Ninth, but Végh’s pacing feels convincing. The tempos don’t seem imposed on the music, which unfolds eloquently in long paragraphs even as small events are unhurriedly savored with palpable affection.

The Salzburg Camerata Academica is a chamber orchestra whose smaller size and clarity of texture serves Végh’s interpretations well. The qualities that make his conducting in Andras Schiff’s series of Decca recordings of the Mozart piano concertos (with the same orchestra) so scintillating are evident here—the kind of flexible phrasing and precise dynamics and articulation that one finds in great chamber music playing, but less often in orchestral performances.

The highlight here may be the Fifth Symphony, a work whose inoffensiveness and tidy dimensions make it an overplayed favorite of classical radio stations, along with Bizet’s Symphony in C. From the first sparkling introductory measure, Végh communicates the work’s delicacy, good spirits, and mild pathos in the second movement. (As the finale began, I realized for the first time where Arthur Sullivan’s wonderful “Paradox” melody in the The Pirates of Penzance comes from.)

The Sixth Symphony is, in large part, a comic work, yet Végh imparts a certain wistfulness to parts of the second movement through very delicate playing and occasional holding back of the tempo. My favorite performance of the finale of the Sixth comes from a long unavailable performance conducted by Dennis Vaughan, a Beecham protégé, with the Orchestra of Naples. He catches the movement’s deadpan humor and its kinship to Rossini by playing it as moderately as possible (it’s marked Allegro moderato) and keeping the tempo unvaryingly strict. Vegh doesn’t quite achieve this.   

In the Ninth, I love Végh’s unpompous way with the Scherzo, in which he omits the longer repeats. In the main theme, when a measure has three quarter notes, the downbeat is accented with the remaining two beats played quite lightly. This enables the whole movement, which lumbers in some performances, to dance along with the feeling of one buoyant beat per bar. The finale isn’t the bracing mad dash of Bernstein’s New York Philharmonic performance, but it swirls and soars.

These sound like live performances. There is the sound of tuning between the third and fourth movements of the Ninth, and occasional small background noises which matter not at all, but no applause. Previously released on the Capriccio label in the mid 1990s, these recordings now appear on Phoenix Edition. The sound is fine, but I wish that Phoenix had included some information about the dates of recording and about Végh and the orchestra.

If there is any drawback, it is that the Salzburg orchestra, which uses modern instruments and plays technically well, doesn’t approach the level of virtuosic solo playing and the lush, unified ensemble of say, the Vienna Philharmonic, whose recording of the Eighth with Carlos Kleiber I wouldn’t want to be without. His conception of the first movement is explosive compared to Végh’s humbler view. For readings that don’t present the symphonies as precursors of Wagner or Bruckner, but give them an unpretentious, joyous feeling that seems to me truly “Schubertian,” I highly recommend Végh.

FANFARE: Paul Orgel