Schubert: Symphony nr. 8

I've just returned from a week in India where I barely sought access to music. I'm surprised myself by the fact that I'm deriving less and less satisfaction from listening on the road. Apparently I have enough with the music that is going on in my head. Or I am so spoiled by the stellar sound emitted by my hifi setup that the mediocre quality from my AKG travel headphones irks me. Anyway, whilst I was eager to indulge in some listening tonight, for all kinds of reasons I didn't feel like French repertoire. I turned to Schubert's Unfinished (D 759, 1822) instead. Kleiber's reading is a fixture in the catalogue although it is not generally seen as one of his greatest recordings. Some think it is too driven and this Amazon reviewer has some very acute observations on what seems like a rather monodimensional take on this perennial classic.

I listened to the LP first (in its original 1979 pressing) and had mixed feelings about it. Kleiber's approach is grandiloquent and even funereal (no problem with that) but at times it tilts into the static and somnolent. As the Amazon reviewer remarks, the pianissimos in this recording are really very quiet which makes the sforzando outbursts even more terrifying of course. But the downside, I found, is that the energy tends to sag a little in the quieter episodes.That being said, the VPO play startlingly beautifully and there is a lot to admire. The sound is particularly good, with an dark, earthy, burnished palette that fits the music superbly well. The soundstage is broad, the orchestra groups are nicely terraced and the solos very characterful. As with the String Quintet I could hear snippets of proto-Mahler, particularly in the almost Bohemian sounding wind choirs and in the overall 'Trauermarsch'-character of the second movement. In the Andante con moto's coda there is even a bar or two that  glances ahead to Mahler's Ninth.

Turning to the CD transfer, I was struck, once more, by the substantial difference between the two media. Relistening to the Andante I noticed how brightly lit and nervous it had become. Yes, there was more momentum in this reading but at the cost of an unpalatable agressiveness in the tutti. The CD made me empathise with commentators who were not enamoured with Kleiber's Toscanini-like swagger. So back to the vinyl which felt on the whole as a much more balanced and palatable reading, despite some of the misgivings pointed out above. Now, I have to make a proviso as it is also possible that some of flatness I experienced in the quiet passages is due to the fact that my Michell Gyrodec's speed is slightly under spec. I've been suspecting this for a while but I haven't had the opportunity to confirm this. I timed the second movement's duration on the LP at 11'08" whilst the sleeve indicates 10'31" and the CD booklet mentions 10'42". I have no idea whether this 20 to 30 second difference is significant (in terms of being on the 33 rpm spec or not) and, if it was, whether that would affect my experience of the music.