Around the time this CD dropped on my mat I was happily revisiting Herbert von Karajan’s broad and imposing 1987 account of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony with the VPO, recently reissued as a supplement in the Schumann volume of DG’s “Karajan Symphony Edition”. Needless to say the shock of the new (being the version under review) proved quite a jolt after “old” Karajan though not, I would say, any more of a shock, not if by that one means musical impact. As with Dausgaard’s equally energised account of the 1841 version of the Fourth (5/07), the effect here is taut, bracing and clear-sighted, with pertly phrased woodwinds in the first movement and a very fast Scherzo. Interesting how the tempo for the Scherzo’s Trio is so often dictated by whether the conductor follows the melody line of the strings, in which case it will invariably be slow (as with Karajan), or whether he concentrates on the wind lines which, as here, suggest a far faster option. Dausgaard is certainly as convincing in the 1851 revised score as he was in the 1841 original.

The Rhenish opens breathlessly and there are one or two places where making haste more slowly might have left a sunnier impression. Then again Dausgaard and his players score especially high in the latter part of the second movement, which has an appropriately jaunty gait, and in the third, one of the most sensitively poised recent accounts. The “Cologne Cathedral” fourth movement is played almost like a Baroque viol fantasy, the contrapuntal lines in places overriding the majestic effect of the whole, while the finale has a dancing demeanour.

The two overtures work well, the performance of Manfred gaining in heat along with the musical argument, the oddball Hermann und Dorothea (where the Marseillaise is writ large) always spirited but light in texture. Excellent sound quality and a sensible orchestral layout, with violin desks divided left and right of the sound stage, make for a happy listening experience; and I would say that viewed overall this fine programme provides a worthy conclusion to a riveting cycle, one that happily stands among (if not quite upstages) the equally superb versions by Zinman (Telarc, 10/90), Sawallisch (EMI, 11/93R), Eschenbach (RCA, 2/00), Bernstein (DG) or Kubelík (Sony), and of course it is one of the few cycles that includes both versions of the Fourth Symphony.