SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES NOS. 3 AND 5. Berlin...

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONIES NOS. 3 AND 5. Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Daniel Barenboim. CBS Masterworks IM-39671 (digital). Barenboim delivers plush, comfortably old-fashioned readings, capitalizing both on the Berliners’ peerless string section and his own inclination for romantic excess. Despite the agreeably soft contours of the readings, Barenboim might have more thoroughly exploited the deft, economical wind scoring of the Fifth and de-emphasized the silky rubato. The third emerges as charmless and positively Beethovenian in its constant tensions.