SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES NOS. 1 AND 2. Staatskapelle...

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES NOS. 1 AND 2. Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Otmar Suitner. Denon 33C37-7905 (compact disc). Suitner fights contemporary stylistic practice by indulging in heavy Brahmsian sonorities and hair-trigger attacks for these two early Schubert works, robbing them of all delicacy and charm. He indulges too in whirlwind tempos, which only reveal the shortcomings of the East Berlin strings in articulating its assignment with any confidence. Denon compounds this mad scramble by recording in the Christuskirche, where the cavernous acoustic consistently blurs the harmonic scheme. A disaster all round.