Palestrina Preludes (1997)

DG obviously have great hopes of Christian Thielemann: symphonies by Beethoven and Schumann and a pair of Beethoven cantatas are among their plans for him. He seems, however, to have chosen the contents of his debut recording himself, and if so he did so shrewdly since the works on this CD demonstrate not only a taste for the unhackneyed but a genuine individuality of approach. For a still relatively young man (he is 37) he shows a marked fondness for broad tempos: even more obviously he loves big gestures and sumptuously rich sound. You can hear both tendencies in Pfitzner’s Kathchen von Heilbronn Overture. (...) (gramophone.co.uk)