{"product_id":"mendelssohn-symphonies-nos-1","title":"MENDELSSOHN: SYMPHONIES NOS 1","description":"Performance: ****\/Sound: **** These fine, not-quite-mature symphonies have more in common with each other than with the better-known Scottish and Italian – the Fifth is actually earlier than either. Here they share just the right approach to show them at their strongest: plenty of affection and intelligence, no inflated pretensions or hyped-up excitement, just good traditional polished German playing. The spacious, resonant sound and warmly shaped phrases that open No. 5 amount to a promise amply fulfilled in an unhurried but still fiery Allegro, and through a slow movement like a song without words that briefly thrusts deeper at the end to push the music over into a vigorous finale, moving urgently forward so that the eventual chorale is a real arrival rather than a formality. No. 1 swings between an evident devotion to Mozart’s great G minor Symphony and touches of high originality: the dramatic false alarms that bring the first movement to an unexpectedly intense climax, the tense hush as Trio reverts to Minuet (or rather not-quite-Scherzo), the plucked chords that stalk around the finale’s solo clarinet tune. Vitality without haste is again the performance’s chief joy.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Robert Maycock, BBC Music Magazine\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"RCA","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49606185713944,"sku":"090266039128","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/3894768.jpg?v=1777617609","url":"https:\/\/hbdirect.com\/products\/mendelssohn-symphonies-nos-1","provider":"HBDirect","version":"1.0","type":"link"}