Robin Ticciati & SCO - Schumann: The Symphonies - International Record Review

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a wonderfully agile and energetic ensemble, capable of great expressiveness, and the playing on these discs is a constant delight. The brass includes natural horns - a legacy from the SCO's glorious years when Charles Mackerras was its Conductor Emeritus. Though Mackerras himself conducted a remarkable Schumann cycle with the SCO at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999, it was not recorded (a great cause for regret - would someone, I wonder, license the tapes from the BBC?). This orchestra is ideally scaled for Schumann's orchestral music. Textures are light and transparent - something easier to achieve in Schumann with period instruments or a chamber orchestra. And matters are greatly helped by Linn's beautifully balanced and extremely natural SACD sound.

Robin Ticciati's interpretative view of these works will doubtless evolve in the years to come. His youthful, usually intelligent, occasionally micro-managed approach is successful on the whole, apart from the odd miscalculation or affectation. There are fewer of those here than in Yannick Nezet-Seguin's recent set with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (DG), which struck me as disappointing for its shortage of musical insights and its excess of mannerisms. Ticciati indulges in a few mannerisms too (as an old-codgerish aside, do young conductors think this is a prerequisite for getting their performances noticed?).

This is apparent in his manipulation of the tempo in the finale of the ‘Rhenish' Symphony. The second theme (bar 26ff.) isn't marked to be played slower, though some easing of the tempo may feel like a natural (and stylistically appropriate) thing to do. But firmly applying the brakes, as Ticciati does, feels awkward and a little self-conscious, and it risks sacrificing the forward momentum of the music. However, in the same movement, Ticciati avoids the trap of sapping the energy from the opening theme - as Nezet-Seguin does by underlining the dolce marking, ignoring the forte marking and playing the whole thing too smoothly - though it still sounds a little too delicate at the start. Elsewhere in this Symphony, Ticciati is distinctly preferable to Nezet-Seguin, not least in the first movement, where Ticciati and the SCO have a greater sense of natural propulsiveness.

This partnership is at its best in the First and Fourth Symphonies, with fresh, direct and well-paced readings, especially the Fourth, where Ticciati seems most willing to let the music speak for itself. It makes a fine end to the cycle. The grander expanses of the Second Symphony are not quite so successful, with Ticciati sounding a little risk-averse in the Scherzo. This set contains just the four symphonies, with the Fourth in its usual (revised) version. The same is the case with Nezet-Seguin's set.

Of very recent Schumann sets, Ticciati's is the one that I have enjoyed the most, thanks in no small part to his marvellous orchestra...Ticciati and the SCO are very welcome newcomers, and they're probably recorded more sensitively than any of their rivals. The set is enhanced by lucid and informative notes by John Worthen.