Search - F. Schubert :: Sym 1-6/8/9-Comp

Graceful, powerful, elegant, dramatic, eloquent, lyrical

Steven Guy | Croydon, South Australia | 12/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are looking for a complete set of symphonies by Franz Schubert, look no further.

This set has been entertaining and enlightening me for around six years now and I have never felt the need to look for another set of recordings of these works.



Frans Brüggen is a musician himself, he plays the recorder and Baroque flute. I think that this experience gives him a great sense of line and melody.



The Orchestra of the 18th Century is one of the best period instrument orchestras around and they make fabulous noises in this recording. The brass have a smaller and more pungent sound than modern instruments and the woodwind all have very distinctive colours. The strings are played with gut strings, tuned lower and played without vibrato.



We hear Schubert's works in a fresh and colourful way. He wasn't Beethoven, of course, but his symphonies are great Classical works - perhaps the kind of thing Mozart might have written if he had lived another twenty or thirty years?



Look out for this set, it is very good.

"