Sorry — there wasn’t supposed to be quite this long a break between the previous post and this one. It’s been for the usual reasons — a book rant that’s been unusually difficult to assemble, some orthopedic problems that are leaving me very tired at the end of the day, and sleep irregularities that kick in once I “officially” turn off for the night. (With the sleep stuff, I can’t win for losing….) Still, two weeks: I didn’t let COVID knock me out of here for two weeks!
More is coming, for reasons you’ll find out. Meanwhile, let’s just continue with the second of my two feature articles for Listener, profiling Intersound’s “Royal Philharmonic Collection.” As a point of information, the two movements from the Elgar Cello Concerto were part of a complete recording, issued later in the series, and (I believe), mentioned in my third “RPO Collection” piece, the one that appeared here a few years ago. (As I’ve noted earlier, the reviews in the Listener folder got all out of chronological order when I tried to fix the formatting.) Also, I never did get around to hearing the Mendelssohn and Shostakovich discs mentioned, which are still sitting on my shelf. Anyway, enjoy (or not), as you prefer.
With an additional quarter’s listening time, I’ve finally worked my way through the initial release of Intersound’s “Royal Philharmonic Collection”; I discussed about twenty of the sixty discs last quarter. (I’ve once again skipped over two discs, to consider them later along with other recent releases: the Mendelssohn symphonies on disc 2834, and Charles Mackerras’s Shostakovich Fifth on 2837.)
The performances and recordings sustain the impressions generated by my first sampling. The orchestra generally plays with professional polish and a good if generalized sense of style. With the right conductors, the results can be brilliant and galvanic; at other times, the level becomes surprisingly shoddy. The occasional smudged or uncertain attack crops up, as do a few tuning problems in the winds, but the overt sectional miscoordinations that blatantly marred some of the earlier recordings are rare. The engineering is uniformly compact and full-sounding, with impressively well-focused bass lines.
So which programs give you the most bang for the buck? Yuri Simonov’s Sacre du printemps isn’t just another virtuoso runthrough, but a vigorous, thrusting performance with sharp, slashing attacks. The coupling, the extended 1945 version of the Firebird Suite, is atmospheric, with lovely liquid wind soli; both works are copiously tracked (2829). Simonov’s potpourri disc (2835) is rather more mixed: a gorgeous Mignon overture, with a velvety horn solo and a sprightly conclusion, and an intermittently graceful Dance of the Hours, but much of the rest is square and overdeliberate.
James Judd’s Brahms is first-rate: from the warm, resonant low strings at the opening, the Second Symphony is singing and gracious, benefitting from rich, full low brasses, while Judd tastefully plays up the triangle rolls and cymbal crashes in a pleasingly clangy Academic Festival Overture (2850). Predictably, Jacques Delacôte does a crackerjack Bizet program. The Symphony in C is full-toned and sensitive to dramatic shadings, with a nice transparent sheen on the upper strings; the L’Arlésienne suites sing easily, with plenty of point and character (2848). Less expected is the young Briton Philip Ellis’s success in an all-Copland program (2841); the livelier passages miss Bernstein’s unique snap, but there’s still plenty of forward impulse, while details of color and texture are handled well. [NOTE 5/4/23: I recently reheard this and was even more favorably impressed. Oddly, it’s the “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo — you remember the commercial: “Beef — it’s what’s for dinner” — that gets stuck.]
Three of the Mozart discs are excellent. Jonathan Carney, who serves as concertmaster for many of these recordings, leads appealing readings of Mozart’s two Sinfonie concertante which, though not the most subtle, are gracious and sensitive. In the string Sinfonia, Andrew Williams’s viola sounds noticeably darker and fuller than Carney’s violin; the wind soloists in the other play with full-throated tone (2852). Hornist Jeffrey Bryant’s forthright, robust survey of Mozart’s four concerti is good, if you don’t mind the big-boned, almost Klemperer-like approach to number one (2846). And James Lockhart’s coupling of Symphonies 36 and 39, with the Magic Flute overture, is admirably controlled, flowing yet propulsive, with the woodwind lines clearly highlighted (2839).
I greatly enjoyed the disc devoted to John Tavener–whose music I hadn’t heard before–especially the impulsive performance of The Protecting Veil, where Raphael Wallfisch’s focused yet vibrant cello soars over full, translucent string textures (2847). As for the other popular Minimalists, Górecki’s overhyped Third Symphony palled on me after about five minutes. The model is apparently the brooding, spacious side of Shostakovich, only he would have been more adventurous harmonically–Górecki remains so monotonously static that the single dramatic key change at 12:25 of the third movement registers as a major event. The Three Pieces in Old Style for strings have a stronger if more melancholy profile (2826). Conversely, Michael Nyman’s busy-busy chug-chug rhythms, familiar from his film scores, keep things moving briskly along, but the relentlessly thick, cluttered textures become fatiguing (2860).
As with my sampling last quarter, a number of discs bury a gem or two amid less distinctive performances; at these prices, they’re still worth a shot. On the Vaughan Williams disc, for example, Christopher Seaman’s unusually buoyant Tallis Fantasia and bluff, hearty English Folk Song Suite allow you to pass over the square, methodical bits of the Wasps suite and The Lark Ascending (2836).
Some of the odder conductor-repertoire matches work out this way. On Ole Schmidt’s Borodin disc, the Polovtsian Dances suffer some inconsistent pulse, and In the Steppes of Central Asia is ardent but unatmospheric; but the Second Symphony’s fast movements have a good power and thrust, while the slow movement sings spaciously, with a turbulent middle section (2828). Similarly, Raymond Leppard strikes just the right balance between buoyancy and tonal weight in Cesar Franck’s music; parts of the Symphony’s first movement lack incisiveness, but it’s nice to have such a good Les Éolides and Le chasseur maudit available (2854). [NOTE 5/4/23: Would-be Francophones, don’t mispronounce chasseur as chaussure, as I did for years — although I could imagine some people wanting to write about “The Accursed Shoe”….]
Andrea Licata’s Peter and the Wolf plays up the characterful instrumental timbres–the strings trim and graceful, the oboe pathetic, the horns proud and bright–but narrator Sir John Gielgud, no less, is miked too closely, and the coupled Carnival of the Animals and Jeux d’enfants are resolutely unfunny (2845). The conductor’s Italian opera intermezzi are variable, best in the Verdi selections–the Giovanna d’Arco overture youthfully vigorous, the Vespri and Luisa Miller redolent of drama–and the elegiac Cavalleria, less good in the verismo pieces (2844).
Speaking of Italian opera, Intersound doesn’t bill the singers on the cover of the Puccini disc, a tactical marketing error: the names of Paul Charles Clarke, Claire Rutter and Stephen Gadd aren’t a draw in Three-Tenor-Land, but as it is the disc looks like one of those old Kostelanetz opera-for-orchestra programs. The choice of Bohème and Butterfly excerpts is pretty standard, though in Bohème Rutter doesn’t attempt Musetta along with Mimi, and the tenor/baritone duet from Act IV isn’t here. The singing is decent–Clarke a bit stiff–but conductor David Charles Abell, despite his booklet protestations to the contrary, too often relies on a sluggish, earthbound beat and a lush sonority for his effects (2830).
Some of the Classical programs are a buyer’s toss-up, coupling a strong performance with a less distinctive one. Check out Ronan O’Hora’s fluent Mozart piano concertos on 2843: a Concerto 23 with strongly etched textures and good variety, matched with a loose-limbed, sometimes inexactly tuned “Elvira Madigan.” Jane Glover is attentive to instrumental detail in Haydn’s “Drum Roll” Symphony, but the spirited “Clock” needs more crispness (2849); similarly, Symphony 102 is by turns energetic and airy, but the “London” isn’t always clear, and keeps losing momentum (2842). The latter problem, along with runny ensemble, also afflicts Howard Shelley’s three Mozart symphonies; his shapely projection of the counterpoint is insufficient compensation (2851).
In the Beethoven department, the surprise comes from Barry Wordsworth, who mangled Scheherazade through sheer neglect but serves up an alert, dramatic Seventh Symphony. After a solid introduction, the first movement has a hearty swing; the second movement has a steady misterioso tread, with a breezy, airy maggiore; the Scherzo is lively and the Finale bustles–worth hearing even if the accompanying First is careless and inattentively tuned (2838). James Lockhart gets a lovely warm singing tone in the Second’s slow movement, but elsewhere here and in the Eighth there are smudgy attacks and the forward drive falters (2840).
Sir Charles Mackerras’s easygoing musicality is no longer balanced by equally scrupulous attention to detail. On the Berlioz disc, the start and finish of Roman Carnival lack dash, while the Symphonie fantastique (including both repeats) is too often lackadaisical and amorphous, though the light, flowing manner in the slow movement is attractive (2831). The Richard Strauss “big three” are better, with a nice flair for detail, although the conductor’s old EMI Don and Till were still more tautly controlled (2855).
There are fortunately few out-and-out disasters. Douglas Bostock’s time as music director in Karlovy Vary apparently taught him little about Dvořák; at first I was disappointed to find only thirteen of the Slavonic Dances on his disc, but after hearing Bostock’s stolid, sodden, thuddingly heavy readings, I was grateful for the three that were spared. The sensitive Op.72 No.8, at the end of the disc, provides the only pleasure (2825).
The recently deceased Lord Menuhin, despite his estimable musicianship, falls spectacularly in the Elgar program: much of the playing in the Enigma Variations, especially in the brass, is thick and sluggish, and reproduced with a harsh resonant edge to boot (2833). In the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, his accompanying for Zino Vinnikov, who’s also leader on the Elgar disc, is similarly heavy and at times poorly coordinated (2832). There’s also a Menuhin sampler, the excerpts from 2833 don’t sound any better, but the first two movements of the Elgar Cello Concerto–the remains of an incomplete recording?–are ravishing, with the unbilled soloist contributing dark, resonant tone and incisive phrasing (2857).
Of the other potpourri discs, “Cinema Classics” makes an excellent “crossover” program for the neophyte: luscious suites of original film music–Rich and Famous the most romantically surging, the Orientalisms of Lawrence of Arabia almost cheesy–along with handsomely played, respectable readings of movements by Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and Barber (2827).
Don’t expect a traditional Anglican “lessons and carols” from “The Christmas Album”: the chamber choir of the Tring Park Arts Educational School comprises girl trebles only, and the arrangements are “easy listening” in style. The performances are good, as are the girl soloists, but Americans may be thrown by a few “different” tunes, especially “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and the jaunty “Holly and the Ivy” (2856). The same chorus appears on “Nursery Rhymes”–the cutesy arrangements for full orchestra and chorus verge on camp, but the choral textures are attractive and the performances witty (2859).
Once again, a few solo instrumental discs seem anomalous in a series devoted to an orchestra. Ronan O’Hora’s approaches Satie’s piano music simply; he is best in the waltzes, with a nice grand-waltz feeling in Je te veux, though he strains a bit at the melodic climaxes elsewhere (2853). James Parsons finds a nice variety of colors in a program of “Organ Favorites” ranging from conservatively registered Bach through French modern (2858).
As I write, the second release of “The Royal Philharmonic Collection” has hit the stores. It includes more goodies: a promising Prokofiev program led by Simonov, and a Mahler Fifth conducted by Frank Shipway which several of my English online correspondents have been raving over. Happy hunting! — Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta 