Stemme, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Dausgaard, Royal Albert Hall

Schumann transformed; Berlioz falls flat

by Stephen WalshTuesday, 24 August 2010

Thomas Dausgaard: 'Dausgaard’s style is, perhaps, too fussy for such a great big hall. His nuancing is ultra-refined, and not everything tells in the wide open spaces'

“The curse of Schumann,” remarked Prom director Roger Wright to me before Monday’s concert, bemoaning the fact that only (only!) 2,000 seats had been sold for the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s concert under Thomas Dausgaard - whereas Dausgaard's earlier Tchaikovsky/ Sibelius Prom had been jam-packed. But he was right: the Albert Hall is more than half empty with those numbers, and looks it. A pity. I can’t recall a better, more spirited, or indeed more interesting performance of any Schumann symphony than Dausgaard’s of the C major, No 2, and it absolutely deserved a full house.

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