Do we really need a Dudamel Schumann cycle?

These are strange days in the recording industry. Heaven alone knows why Platoon – an Apple sub-conglomerate with all the charm of the Borg – has decided that this is the moment to release a cycle of Schumann symphonies recorded live by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2018. But I’m not complaining. No conductor records these four misunderstood masterpieces for the glory.

No: it has to be love; and while you can draw any number of conclusions from Platoon’s decision to give the recordings away for free via streaming and download platforms, the real value is in the listening. If perceptions of Dudamel as a hyperactive ex-wunderkind were ever really justified, they aren’t now. Like any maestro, he’s as good as his last performance, and his Schumann symphonies are polished and audibly sincere – big on colour, but unafraid to follow Schumann into the shadows in (say) the Beethoven-inspired slow movement of the Second, or the fourth movement of the Rhenish, Schumann’s high-gothic evocation of Cologne Cathedral.

In truth, the only serious problem is that Dudamel’s Schumann isn’t fantastic enough. He has a slightly foursquare way of sitting back on the rhythms. You long for more intimacy in the Fourth’s caressing violin solo, and less self-consciousness at the magic moment when Schumann the dreamer suddenly, impossibly, halts his Spring symphony to float away into a cadenza for horns and flute. This is music of pine forests and dew: with the Dude, you never quite get off the freeway. Still, there’s a lot here that’s good, and if you don’t like it, you can always ask for your money back.