Tragic And Light Symphonies From A Heavy Soul

Multiple prize-winning conductor René Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra present the third installment of their Schubert cycle on Pentatone with a recording of the composer’s Fourth and Fifth Symphony.

Just as with the Second and Third, Jacobs approaches these works as a symphonic pair, revealing contrasting aspects of Schubert’s personality and compositional approach. The Fourth is Schubert’s first symphony in a minor key and adumbrates a new harmonic worldview that Dvořák associated with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.

On the contrary, the Fifth sounds Mozartian and cheerful, although that light-heartedness is only an appearance, as is so often the case in Schubert’s music. In the composer’s words, “too light a mind usually harbors a heart that is too heavy!” Looking closer beneath the surface, the cross-relations between the “Tragic” Fourth and “lighter” Fifth become more evident.

The players of the B’Rock Orchestra present these works on period instruments. Transparent, but full of fire.

B’Rock Orchestra
Rene Jacobs, Conductor