Norman Stinchcombe reviews the latest classical CD releases
Ravel, ‘Daphnis et Chloé’: London Symphony Orchestra, Tenebrae / Sir Antonio Pappano (LSO Live CD & SACD) ★★★★★
Thirty years ago a new recording of Ravel’s complete ballet ‘Daphnis et Chloé’ would have faced intense competition in a crowded field. The deletions axe wielded by the international media conglomerates which control most of the classical music market has changed all that. So the classic 1950s analogue recording by Monteux and the LSO, fine digital recordings by Boulez, Dutoit, Ozawa and Levine – all owned by Universal – Rattle (Warner Classics) and Munch (Sony) have gone. Which makes this excellent release from the LSO’s own label doubly welcome. Ravel’s lush score demands a virtuoso orchestra: it needs to be subtle and diaphanous, as in the ‘Lever du jour’ (Sunrise) of Part II; swaggering and exuberant as the pirates burst onto the scene; and with reserves of power for the climactic ‘Danse générale’ (Bacchanale). Pappano excels in colourful scores, as in his Respighi recording, and here he marshals a musical army – including massed percussion from tinkling celesta to tambourine, tam-tam and triangle to wind machine – with a sure hand. This is a performance which has sweep, panache and mystery with vocal group Tenebrae supplying the wordless chorus. The Barbican recording is close but has a tremendous impact and the disc is a splendidly engaging listen.
Simon Rattle was always a fervent advocate of Mahler’s symphonies, recording Deryck Cooke’s completion of Mahler’s tenth with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as a precocious 25-year-old. He programmed them extensively during his eighteen year tenure with the CBSO and returned to Symphony Hall in 2004 for a wonderful concert of Mahler’s eighth symphony which was recorded live. Mahler featured prominently in concerts and recordings when he moved to the Berlin Philharmonic and now he’s doing the same with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which he became chief conductor in 2023. The recordings are made live with the CDs released on the orchestra’s own label. Unlike conductors as different as Bernstein, Haitink and Boulez – love or loathe them you know where they stand – whereas Rattle has been inconsistent and the results mixed. What of his latest series? His CBSO recording of Symphony No.6 was his weakest, a tame affair that never got to grips with Mahler’s darkest work. He also placed the Scherzo third after the Andante – the new “official” position which doesn’t work musically – and split the work over two CDs so that listeners couldn’t easily programme their CDs to go back to the original sequence. The new recording (BR Klassik CD) ★★★ is an improvement: being on a single disc the listener can easily choose the sequencing. Rattle’s approach is more dynamic with the opening Allegro Energico tauter and each movement faster than the CBSO recording. The BRSO is a world-class orchestra and there is quality in every section and the close recording has a visceral impact. But, and it’s a big but, I don’t feel that the symphony’s bleak and despairing vision is manifested. Listen to Bernstein’s 1989 live recording with the Vienna Philharmonic for that: the opening even fast and more pulverizing, the Scherzo is slower but Bernstein and his band (the ultimate Mahler orchestra) achieve Mahler’s direction of “Wuchtig” (“Massive”) impressively. Rattle’s CBSO. Symphony No.7 was one of his greatest successes. While other conductors flounder – Boulez’s deadpan rendering is a comprehensive dud – Rattle conveyed its beguiling mixture of dreamy fantasy, spooky nightmare and made the finale’s exuberance a fitting and natural climax. His new recording (BR Klassik CD)★★★★ repeats the success with a truly joyful performance, all details in place including a beautifully played tenor horn, and the Nachtmusik a “mixture of rhetoric, camp, and shadows” as Bernstein pithily described it. Rattle first recorded Symphony No.9 live with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1998, a febrile affair, slightly wild, passionate but not always focused. Ten years later his live Berlin recording was slower, steadier and weightier but also duller. The new one (BR Klassik CD)★★★★ is the best of the three. The concert was dedicated to the memory of Bernard Haitink who was with the orchestra for 61 years and, with Rattle approaching 70, we have Mahler’s vision of approaching mortality – and a resigned acceptance of it – realized in a powerful and passionate performance.
Mahler Symphony No.3: Czech Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonic Choir / Bychkov (2 CDs Pentatone) ★★★★★
One of Rattle’s CBSO disappointments was Mahler’s third symphony, a recording with many pleasures – especially the singing – but the final movement, Mahler’s paean to the redemptive power of romantic love – sounded brisk, detached and emotionally reticent. Listen to the new recording of the work, which is the latest instalment from a lauded new cycle from the Czech Philharmonic and their Chief Conductor Semyon Bychkov, and hear how that movement becomes the apotheosis of the pageant of earthly and heavenly life that has gone before. It’s expansive (25.20) but Bychkov ensures that it is taut and passionate, never sagging or dragging. This Mahler cycle has been hugely impressive with the Czech Philharmonic’s playing featuring sweet but never saccharine string playing and a colourful and characterful wind section. Their tradition of playing Dvorak makes them experts at playing the songs, dances and sounds of Bohemia. Mahler has become so closely identified with Vienna that it's easy to forget that he was Bohemian-born and soaked up these melodies as did Dvorak; the Czech Philharmonic's playing makes the musical connection clear and enriches one's appreciation of Mahler's musical vision of Nature. The long first movement – occupying Disc 1 – is a slow burn awakening of Nature. Bychkov is daring here, extending the brooding wait until the thunderous, blazing eruption of Pan awakening. There is fine singing from the adults and children of the Choir, with an enthusiastic ‘Bim bam’, and a powerful and inwardly intense declamation of Nietzsche’s text by mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison. Pentatone’s recording in the orchestra’s home Dvorak Hall has the lively open acoustic and wide-ranging dynamics Mahler’s music demands. A winner!
Bruckner ‘From the Archives’ Volume 6 (2 CDs Somm Recordings) ★★
Somm’s mining of the radio tape archives has produced some fascinating, some not so, Bruckner recordings. They sound better than ever with restoration and remastering by Lani Spahr. Here we have Symphony No.8 in C minor from 1957 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum conducing, recorded live (in mono) in the spacious acoustic of the Herkulessaal in Munich. Jochum was a fine Bruckner conductor and I cherish his set with this orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic – the first Bruckner set on LP I owned – and his later Dresden cycle. Unlike Karajan and Haitink, who found a favoured tempo for every Bruckner movement and maintained it, Jochum was flexible, subjective and occasionally impulsive. It produced fine performances – except with No.8. Using the cut Nowak text did not help, compromising the finale, but it is Jochum’s restlessness and jolting shifts in tempi that mar his approach, sacrificing long term grandeur, in this grandest of symphonies, for momentary frissons. Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in a 1966 (mono) live recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No.9 in D minor. Sawallisch was never idiosyncratic but often, in symphony recordings, efficient but dull and is so here. A 1950 recording of Psalm 150 with Hilde Česka soprano, Vienna Akademie Kammerchor and Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Henry Swoboda conductor, is a bonus.