A very distinctive coupling this, stylised in the extreme and with a keen-eared approach to dynamics that is quite unlike anyone else’s. The Reformation is a real gem, with sweeping inflections and in the first movement a thrilling level of urgency (just beam up the drama that sets in at around 7'23"). Reviewing Edward Gardner’s recent CBSO recording for Chandos, I wrote that ‘I would have liked a little more repose for the scherzo, a softer-grained Allegro vivace with more prominence given to those delightfully burbling flutes towards the end of the movement’. Zehetmair’s scherzo is certainly softer-grained, marginally slower too, which makes for a more genial effect. The Andante, again taken at a slightly broader pace than on Gardner’s version, is extremely beautiful, texturally warm but expressively restrained; and the solo flute’s declamation of ‘Ein feste Burg’ has a sense of stillness that makes the subsequent gathering of winds and brass around it particularly moving. Gardner pounds away at the ensuing Allegro vivace like there’s no tomorrow, speeding for the Allegro maestoso that follows, whereas Zehetmair matches the two allegros so the transition to the finale proper is entirely seamless, an approach also favoured by Sir Roger Norrington on his excellent Stuttgart recording for Hänssler Classic. Whether this marks the maestoso’s arrival quite in the way that Mendelssohn envisaged is open to discussion, and the same goes for Zehetmair’s wild accelerando around the movement’s coda (from 7'42"), but I find the performance as a whole compelling.

Norrington and Zehetmair both couple the Reformation with the First Symphony but in the case of the latter my preferences swing into reverse. Although Zehetmair again offers a highly coloured take on the music, his tendency to taper string phrases with sudden decrescendos can be distracting, even though the playing of his Winterthur orchestra has enormous gusto. Norrington’s approach is less mannered and his Minuet is broader than Zehetmair’s by almost two minutes, no bad thing as it nudges the music a step or two in the direction of Schubert (whose similarly urgent Fourth Symphony was composed eight years earlier). So, if it’s the Reformation alone you’re after, I would recommend sampling Zehetmair at the very least: see how you take to his varieties of dynamic inflection. I loved his recording but didn’t particularly care for his rather affected account of the First, so if you want this particular coupling, Norrington on Hänssler is probably the safer bet. On the other hand, Gardner is still very much in the running with his excellent disc of Nos 4 and 5.