Mendelssohn wants an amplitude of soul, a generosity of spirit, a joyful yet serious appreciation of the beauty of pure sound, and the essential goodness and rightness of life. The solemn expectancy of the chords spun of gossamer and thin air at the opening of the Overture from A Midsummer Night's Dream, the gracious beneficence of the song danced through sunshine and warm air in the Con moto moderato from the Italian Symphony, the controlled exhilaration of the rhythms compounded of lust and hot air in the Salterello from the Italian Symphony: these are the things that make
Mendelssohn the most blessed and beatific of German Romantic composers.
But not on this disc with
James Levine leading the
Berlin Philharmonic and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the Italian,
Levine conducts with reckless abandon and the
Berlin plays with cheerful disregard, and the effect is distinctly ungallant, not to say gauche. As it did in its few other recordings with
Levine, the
Berlin sounds distinctly disinclined to pay much attention to
Levine and the performance is ultimately inoffensive if undistinguished. But the
Chicago Symphony, an orchestra that played under
Levine for two decades, seems more than distinctly disinclined; it seems outright hostile to
Levine. The
Chicago's strings are scrawny, the winds are squawky, the brass are blatty, the ensemble is sloppy, and the tonal color is garish, not to say gaudy. As it did in many if not most of its many recordings with
Levine, the
Chicago seems almost antagonist with
Levine and the performance is ultimately a grudge match between irresistible force and immovable object. Universal's remastering of Deutsche Grammophon's early digital sound is only a little less hard and edgy than the original.