The Spaniard Pablo Heras-Casado is, with François-Xavier Roth, the conductor who navigates the most between traditional orchestras and formations on old instruments. One suspects that he was hired by the former to “strike down tradition”. The Münchner Philharmoniker, former orchestra of Celibidache, then of James Levine, is now an orphan of Valery Gergiev. That said, this recording dates from 2019. The bias is clear: lightening, to make as many things as possible heard without retouching the orchestration. Heras-Casado is not a maniac who seeks to baroqueize the symphony orchestra and preserves what is necessary of vibrato, but by dint of clarifying, he greatly lightens the musical density and, by wanting to avoid “brahmsizing” Schumann (4e Symphony !), it really pulls him towards Mendelssohn. If you want to avoid the broad romanticism of Barenboim (Warner) or Bernstein (DG), without going to old instruments (Gardiner, Archiv), the best choice for a racy Schumann remains Zinman (Arte Nova).
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