Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Zinman - Schumann: Symphonies No. 2 & No. 3 "Rhenish" (1991)

While Robert Schumann's symphonies are undeniable masterpieces full of inventive musical development and striking innovations in form, their most persistent difficulty lies in their orchestration: Schumann's over-reliance on doublings of the strings and woodwinds often results in a gray and lackluster sound. Credit David Zinman for finding a way to get past this obstacle in his recording of the Symphony No. 3. By skillfully balancing the choirs and drawing out sonorities from the background, Zinman performs a service to the music without doctoring the score. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is in terrific form for the heroic opening movement, where the hemiolas and rhythmic interplay are clarified through the distinctive color contrasts. The Scherzo's bold brass parts are noteworthy, and the woodwinds glow in the third movement. The dark fourth movement is given real depth in its contrapuntal layers, and the ebullient finale is made even more enjoyable for the care given to timbral highlighting. Less successful is the performance of the Symphony No. 2, which sounds opaque in spite of the orchestra's best efforts. The Adagio espressivo stands out as the most translucent movement -- due in large part to Schumann's sensitive writing for woodwinds -- but the performance of the symphony as a whole unfortunately leaves a dull impression.