Longtime admirers of short-lived conductor
Ferenc Fricsay will be cheered to hear that their hero's catalog of Mozart recordings has been expanded by one disc, to wit, this 2008 Audite release of the Hungarian conductor's performances of the Austrian composer's symphonies No. 29, No. 39, and No. 40 with the RIAS Symphonie-Orchester recorded in the early and mid-'50s. Heretofore, they had had to be content with Deutsche Grammophon's releases of the conductor's excellent accounts of those three works plus the same composer's Symphony No. 41 with the
Vienna Symphony, but this disc reveals that those recordings were not a fluke. As before,
Fricsay's Mozart is elegantly polished, intellectually lucid, and astonishingly beautiful. And as always with this gifted conductor, lines are clean, attacks crisp, forms clear, balances poised, and tempos judicious though on the quick side. Though the RIAS Orchestra is clearly not the greatest orchestra in Europe, it is wholly professional and deeply dedicated and its enthusiasm can stand comparison to all but the greatest orchestras in Europe. If plainly not for everyone, this disc will likely thrill
Fricsay's admirers, even though the early-'50s sound is dim and somewhat congested.