www.musicweb-international.com, 01. August 2005
The Dante Symphony is the one exception in terms of performance and recording. The Netherlands Philharmonic are set in the warm acoustic of the Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam which certainly aids and abets this performance. Comparing it with that of Kurt Masur on EMI I would place Haenchen ahead in terms of both fire and sensitivity. I enjoyed this disc very much, although as a masterpiece, wouldn’t the Faust Symphony have been a better choice? The fill-up orchestration of Liszt’s earlier organ work – A La Chapelle Sixtine - is worth having ... but a masterpiece?
John Phillips