Opening Doors is an ongoing series in which the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard explore a wide range of Romantic symphonic music. The project will include a complete Schumann Symphony cycle as well as symphonic works by Schubert, Dvorak and Bruckner.
The first volume — which included the original version of Symphony No. 4 — was greeted with acclaim by the critics, receiving special recommendations from the German website Klassik Heute and from BBC Music Magazine which has since nominated it for Orchestral Recording of the Year for their 2007 Awards. The website klassik.com gave the verdict ‘With this wonderful recording, Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra catapult into the very top of the list of excellent Schumann interpreters´, while the reviewer in the Sunday Times (UK) deemed the playing to be ‘first-rate´ with ‘a real feeling for the emotional extremes that are at the heart of Schumann´s art.´ Gramophone Magazine commented ´All this talk of Schumann's stodgy orchestral writing ... Rubbish, I say! Evidence for the defence is simple: keep the orchestra slim and well balanced, the tempi lively and the textures clear and the calories positively fall away. Thomas Dausgaard, with just 38 players, turns the symphonic Schumann into a thoughtful athlete who burns energy while his mind spins.