Robin Ticciati & SCO - Schumann: The Symphonies - Sinfini Music

While the first half of the 19th century was a golden age for classical music, there are a host of issues about how that music - for instance Robert Schumann's four symphonies - should be played today.

Instruments then sounded different from their present-day counterparts - generally less sumptuous and less loud, with a compensating deftness, plus a more natural collective balance. Many ensembles, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra among them, therefore partly use period-style instruments, and partly modern ones played in a similar style (for instance with the woodwind using less vibrato).

The result here is a strikingly spare overall sonority, mellowed a little by the warm acoustic of Perth Concert Hall, but still begging many questions: for instance the SCO string sound might have sounded quite lustrous to listeners in Schumann's time, but it comes across as lean and pretty mean today. The upside is the vivid ease with which detail comes across, plus a constant buzz of energy in the playing, with any suggestion of teutonic heaviness kept happily at arm's length. The First Symphony (‘Spring') here bowls along with a freshness that nicely suits the music's breezy character; and the Third (‘Rhenish') offers some gorgeous sounds, like the tawny-brown blend of horns and trombones in the fourth movement's portrayal of a procession in Cologne Cathedral. Altogether an attractive, classily played collection. But the last word on how to perform this music? There can be no such thing.