Limp as a performance and leaden as an interpretation, this coupling of Mendelssohn's First and Fourth symphonies with his Hebrides Overture, featuring
Ross Pople and the
London Festival Orchestra, is hardly worth the bother. For example, at the start of the Fourth Symphony's opening Allegro vivace, the tempos are too slow, the textures too thick, the strings too raw, the winds too ragged, the attacks too sloppy, the sonorities too soggy, and the whole ensemble seems held together more by momentum and inertia than by purpose and reason. Perhaps
Pople could have pulled off a better performance with a more polished orchestra, since the
London Festival Orchestra sounds like it doesn't perform often enough as a unit to build up the kind of effortless ensemble playing that better London orchestras are capable of. Or perhaps the
London Festival Orchestra could have done better with a conductor more at ease with mainstream symphonic repertoire, since
Pople seems hardly familiar with these well-known works, and his interpretations seem generic rather than specific. There are dozens of better recordings of all these works, and no especially good reason to try this one.