Amazing stuff, brilliantly performed. The first of the symphonies fair bursts from the staves, with a chuckling finale that would surely have delighted Rossini. And although the Sixth Symphony's finale harbours hints of miracles to come, Mendelssohn's mature personality is more comprehensively anticipated in the Seventh.
Again, the finale suggests the ebullient, life-affirming manner of the orchestral symphonies, albeit sobered by a spot of fugally formal writing later on. The 12th Symphony opens with a Handelian sense of ceremony, goes on to incorporate a characteristically tender Andante and ends with a finale that, to quote Stig Jacobsson's enthusiastic notes, 'dies away to pizzicato and a subsequent accelerando which recalls Rossini'.
This is truly delightful music, the playing both sensitive and exciting, while BIS's sound is impressively full-bodied.