RECORDINGS

Thielemann, the young music director of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and Karajan protege, plays an orchestra as if it were a solo instrument. In this, his third recording for DG, the expressiveness of his music-making is quick, delicate and minutely controlled as well as grandly eloquent, a perfect match for Schumann. He creates textures wafer-thin and diaphanous, molds phrases with remarkable flexibility, pulls tempos back and forth at will. The results are often startlingly idiosyncratic. The “Manfred” Overture becomes breathless poetry, the Second Symphony an intricate narrative that climaxes majestically. Thielemann’s re-seating of the string section opens up the composer’s oft-criticized orchestration, making the woodwinds glow, band-like, in the center. In the undervalued Konzertstuck, he shadows the four exuberant solo hornists like a cat about to pounce.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).