Stravinsky: Symphonies (CD review)

Sir Georg Solti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Decca 289 458 898-2.

Although his ballets overshadow his other orchestral work, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) wrote several short symphonies in his lifetime. This disc presents three of them in recordings that were among the last made by Sir Georg Solti and his beloved Chicago Symphony Orchestra before his death in 1997. They show Solti in a more subdued, almost meditative mood, than we usually think of the fiery conductor, although he still whips up a driving rhythm when necessary.

The first work in the program is the Symphony in Three Movements, written on commission in 1945 for the New York Philharmonic. It is the most obviously balletic in style, the first and final movements, especially, reminding the listener of parts of The Rite of Spring. The middle movement, however, is most serene, originally composed as film music for the appearance of the Virgin in The Song of Bernadette. Solti and his players handle the work in a most nuanced and persuasive manner.

Sir Georg Solti

Next comes the Symphony in C, in four movements the longest piece on the program and written in 1940 for the Chicago Symphony. It is also the oddest piece in the group, not quite holding together as we might expect of a conventional symphonic work. Its parts seem more erratic in nature than in the other pieces, more mercurial, even though Solti attempts to mitigate their differences as much as possible.

The disc concludes with the sweetest composition of all, the earliest, and maybe the most familiar: the Symphony of Psalms, written in 1930 for the Boston Symphony. It is a setting for three Psalms, Nos. 39, 40, and 150, sung by the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus. Behind their voices, the orchestra sounds like one large organ playing in solemn accompaniment. It's quite lovely.

Decca's sound, made in Orchestra Hall, Chicago, is notable for its absence of any distinguishing characteristics. This can either be good or bad, depending on your point of view. It's good in that there is nothing about the sonics to distract from the music. It's bad if you're looking for an audiophile experience with lots of depth, impact, transparency, roars, and whistles. Not that it doesn't provide its fair share of thrills, particularly in the occasional bass note, but it is rather dry, medium-range sound, not likely to offend or excite.

In all, this disc struck me as sensible and straightforward, but not remarkably stimulating. It is a more-measured Stravinsky, and a more-measured Solti, than some of us have come to expect.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Black Manhattan, Volume 3 (CD review)

Rick Benjamin, The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. New World Records 80795-2.

I always seem to be late to the party. I never heard Volumes 1 or 2 of Black Manhattan, but I'm glad I was able to listen to Volume 3. The experience was well worthwhile and highly entertaining.

What I and maybe of millions of others know about the early development of popular black music in America probably begins and ends with Scott Joplin at the turn of the twentieth century and a few jazz artists of the Twenties. But there was more. Much more. Which these albums from Rick Benjamin and the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra demonstrate.

Benjamin's recordings document black music from the late nineteenth century to the 1930's or so, and through careful research he provides a refreshing glimpse into the roots of much modern pop music. In fact, many of the tunes Benjamin and his orchestra play are eye-opening in that played in their original arrangements they don't always sound the way we expect them to. To illustrate, here is a list of the selections on Volume 3, some of them with vocal accompaniments:

  1. Pork and Beans Rag
  2. I'm Just Wild About Harry
  3. The Dancing Deacon: Clef Club Fox-Trot
  4. Jewel of the Big Blue Nile
  5. We'll Raise the Roof To-Night
  6. "Chant" from the Bandana Sketches
  7. Dear Old Southland
  8. Wall Street 'Rag'
  9. Oh Dem Golden Slippers
10. In the Baggage Coach Ahead
11. Love Will Find a Way
12. Overture to My Friend from Kentucky
13. Royal Garden Blues
14. The Tremolo Trot
15. Just One Word of Consolation
16. After You've Gone
17. Delicioso: Tango Aristocratico
18. The Zoo-Step
19. The Slow Drag Blues
20. Ianthia March
21. I'm Goin' Home
22. Lift Every Voice and Sing: National Negro Hymn

The songs span the years 1879-1921, and at twenty-two tracks the album provides almost seventy minutes of music. What's more, the disc comes with a forty-seven page booklet documenting each and every selection, some of the most-extensive and informative notes accompanying any disc I've encountered in a very long while. So, there's that, too.

Rick Benjamin

Anyway, I loved the honesty of the performances, their nuanced emotional appeal, the enthusiasm of the players, and the skill of Maestro Benjamin in handling all of this so deftly. Benjamin never appears interested in showing off the tunes in any untoward way by exaggeration or over-sentimentality.

Of course, there are a few familiar names on the program: Scott Joplin with "Wall Street Rag," Eubie Blake with "I'm Just Wild about Harry," and Gussie Davis with "In the Baggage Coach Ahead." Mainly, though, we get pieces by less well-known composers like Frederick M. Byron, C. Luckeyth Roberts, Sidney Perrin, J. Turner Layton, James Bland, Will H. Dixon, Clarence Cameron White, J. Leubrie Hill, Clarence Williams, Spencer Williams, Tom Lemonier, Q. Roscoe Snowden, James Weldon Johnson, and J. Rosamund Johnson.

Most of the tunes are instrumentals, but several feature solo vocals from soprano Janai Brugger, tenor Chauncey Packer, and baritone Edward Pleasant, who seem to have bigger, more operatic voices than the tunes require. Much as I admired these vocals, I preferred the purely instrumental numbers.

Producer and engineer Judith Sherman recorded the music at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York in June 2017. The sound nicely captures the ambience of the hall, with good depth of field and a light ambient bloom. This is a realistic sonic reproduction rather than a super-analytical, super-transparent one. Instrument separation is good, vocals are natural (if a little too close for my taste), and dynamic impact is lifelike.

Minor quibbles aside, this was one of the most charming albums I listened to all year.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Rosetti: Clarinet Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (CD review)

Also, Concerto for Two Horns. Dieter Klocker, clarinet; Holger Schroter-Seebeck, SWR Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg. CPO 999 621-2.

Francesco Antonio Rosetti (c. 1750-1792) is hardly a household name anymore, and despite the name sounding Italian, he was born in Bohemia, a region of today's Czech Republic. As a Kapellmeister for much of his adult life, he composed quite a lot of music: symphonies (over fifty of them), concertos, partitas, songs, and various chamber works, with the concertos represented here among his most popular pieces.

The first thing that struck me upon listening to this disc was its wholly natural and realistic orchestral depth. Then, with the entrance of the clarinet in the program's first selection, the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra No. 1 in E-flat major, it was the careful balance of the featured instrument with the rest of the ensemble that impressed me. I cannot imagine even the most finicky audiophile finding fault with the recording's 1998 sound and its excellent imaging from engineer Norbert Vossen.

Dieter Klocker

The next things I noticed about the music were the sweetness and gentleness of the concerto's two opening movements, Dieter Klocker's clarinet playfully caressing the orchestra throughout. This may be a composition of the mid-to-late Classical period (the exact date is unknown but 1789 would not be far off), yet one gets a feeling of early Romanticism in these sections. The piece ends with an enthusiastic and sprightly Rondo that, nevertheless, retains the mood, if not the tempo, of the preceding parts.

The Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra No. 2, here getting its premiere recording, sounds more ambitious and sophisticated in its instrumental texture and does not convey the same innocence of spirit as the Concerto No. 1 possesses. Nevertheless, Maestro Holger Schroter-Seebeck and his players give it a good and thorough outing, and the results are satisfying.

Concluding the program is Rosetti's Concerto for Two Horns and Orchestra, also in its premiere recording. It is more symphonic in structure and tone than the Clarinet Concertos and, while still entertaining, sounds more commonplace than the accompanying works. The CPO engineers capture the horns quite well, however, and one will find their presence alone a good deal of fun.

This is a superb album of unusual and highly enjoyable repertoire that one should not dismiss out of hand just because the name Antonio Rosetti is relatively obscure. In his time, audiences knew and appreciated Rosetti. With discs like this one, maybe people will again get to know him.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

A Beethoven Odyssey, Volume 5 (CD review)

Piano Sonatas Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 10. James Brawn, piano. MSR Classics MS 1469.

You know how when you've got a favorite actor or actress in a part, and you can't imagine anyone else doing it better: Like Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, John Thaw in Inspector Morse, or more recently Sam Elliot in The Hero? You know that other people could have done justice to the roles, but you doubt that anyone else could have improved upon them. That's the way I feel about English-born pianist James Brawn and his performances in the Beethoven piano sonatas.

Which is to take nothing away from any of the fine sets of sonatas we've gotten over the years from such distinguished artists as Alfred Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Stephen Kovacevich, Claudio Arrau, Wilhelm Kempff, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Maurizio Pollini, Artur Schnabel, and others. And I can't claim that Brawn does anything any better than these other pianists. It's just that Brawn's work always feels consistently "right"; it's never flashy or eccentric, extroverted, idiosyncratic, or dull. With Brawn you just can't seem to think of the music played any other way.

Anyhow, with Volume 5 of his "Beethoven Odyssey," Brawn has now recorded twenty of Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas, and he shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Fortunately for us.

The four sonatas Brawn performs on the current program (Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 10) date from 1798 and 1799. As Beethoven did with the others in the cycle, he intended these sonatas for performance in the home for family and friends, in a chamber setting for small gatherings, or on the concert stage for large audiences. They were kind of all-purpose musical pieces, and, of course, the composer never meant them to be played all at once (although some pianists have performed them over a series of evenings). Well, some of Beethoven's concerts were, indeed, all-night affairs, but even for him thirty-two works would be a stretch. Whatever, the sonatas are probably the most well known and maybe the best such works ever written, and Brawn gives them a good workout.

James Brawn

So, what does Brawn do with these early sonatas? It's probably easier, as I suggested above, to say what he doesn't do with them. He isn't as gentle as Kempff; he isn't as dynamic as Pollini; he isn't as poetic as Arrau; he isn't as deliberate as Brendel; he isn't as zestful as Barenboim; and so on. In fact, it's hard to characterize Brawn's playing with simple adjectives. He just molds each phrase as skillfully as possible, the fast movements sounding every bit as vital and vigorous as any you've heard; and the slow movements as lyrical, as serene, as thoughtful as any around.

Brawn takes Sonata No. 5 at a good, heady pace, yet he never oversteps the bounds of propriety, making it sound lively and tranquil by turns. The first movement, especially, appears full of contrasts--dynamic and emotional--and with Brawn in full control, it is a fine introduction to the rest of the pieces. The second, slow movement seems to foreshadow Chopin and conveys a deep feeling of sorrow. Then, the Finale does a complete U-turn, being very quick (prestissimo) and upbeat. Brawn has a good deal of fun with it.

Sonata No. 6 was apparently one of Beethoven's favorites, which may have proved what a good pianist he was. I say this because of the four sonatas on this program, No. 6 is probably the most virtuosic. Brawn's flying fingers were never in more evidence, and he gives it a good workout. The Presto finale is particularly demanding, but Brawn has no difficulty with it, and the result is most entertaining.

Sonata No. 7 is unusual in that it has four movements rather than the traditional three. The work alternates between brightness and gloom, but, fear not, it ends on a smiling note. Again, the score illustrates how nimble Mr. Brawn is on the keyboard, and while I can't claim I've ever liked the piece too well, Brawn does as much as possible to make it enjoyable.

The disc ends with Sonata No. 10, a more elegant and lyrical work than the preceding ones, perhaps an indication of Beethoven's growing maturity; he may have felt he no longer needed to prove his worth through flamboyant showmanship alone. Whatever the case, under Brawn's thoughtful guidance, the sonata sounds flowing, graceful, playful, lilting, dramatic, and exciting. It ends the program in bravura fashion and reinforces my opinion that when Brawn finishes the complete sonatas, the set will rival the very best available. So far, there are simply none better.

Producer Jeremy Hayes and engineer Ben Connellan recorded the music at Potton Hall, Suffolk, United Kingdom in April 2017. The piano sounds about as good as it could sound, namely, like a real piano. The sonics are clear and clean, the hall resonance is nigh-well perfect, and the miking distance provides a realistic seating position on the part of the listener.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Chopin: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (CD review)

Martha Argerich, piano; Charles Dutoit, Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Warner Classics 7243 5 56798 2 6.

First, a prefatory note:  Since I first heard it in the mid Sixties, Maurizio Polloni's 1960 rendering of Chopin's First Piano Concerto (EMI) has been one of my top ten favorite recordings of all time. I never thought that anything could or would shake my confidence in that particular conviction. But then I should never have underestimated Martha Argerich, who continually amazes me with each of her releases. Her 1998 recording of the First Concerto is sublime. No, I will not go so far as to concede that it overshadows Pollini's version, but it comes closer than most other recordings I have listened to in the past fifty years or so.

In the first movement, Argerich and Pollini are equally poetic and equally heroic, and if anyone can find an advantage for either of them, he or she is a better listener than I. Amazingly, the interpretations are within two seconds of one another in the opening movement, and both are hauntingly beautiful in the big middle tune.

Martha Argerich

In the slow, second movement, however, I have to stick with Pollini.  Chopin himself describes the movement as "...calm and melancholy, giving the impression of someone looking gently towards a spot which calls to mind a thousand happy memories. It is a kind of reverie in the moonlight on a beautiful spring evening." Such is Pollini's account, which lingers ever that much longer in the moonlight than Argerich's.

In the final movement, the Rondo Vivace, again the two  performances are almost equally vigorous, but here I have to admit to a marginally greater fluency in Argerich's playing, even if she takes things at a rather heady pace. 

What I cannot deny is that EMI's (now Warner's) sound mostly improved over the years. It was richer, smoother, quieter, and more refined in 1998 than in 1960. I say "mostly," though, because the actual piano sound is a tad more well focused in the older recording and a bit more crisply defined. Perhaps for the first-time buyer of either disc, price may play a part in the decision or the couplings on the two discs.

The new Argerich issue combines the First Concerto with the Second (actually written earlier than the First). As expected, the Second also goes to the top of the pile, although I don't especially respond to much of the music except its lovely second movement. Pollini rounds out his mid-priced album with a collection of short solo Chopin pieces, all of them must-buys as well. So, in the end I'd have to advise any serious music collector to purchase both discs. The older recording is an acknowledged classic; the newer one was my personal choice for record of the year when it came out. What else can a person do but own them both?

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Krenek: Complete Piano Concertos, Volume Two (CD review)

Double Concerto; Little Concerto; Concerto for Two Pianos; Piano Concerto No. 4. Mikhail Korzhev, piano; Eric Huebner, piano; Nurit Pacht, violin; Adrian Partington, organ. Kenneth Woods, English Symphony Orchestra. Toccata Classics TOCC 0392.

In a booklet note accompanying this disc, author/teacher/conductor Peter Tregear writes, "Ernst Krenek's reputation as a 'one-man history of twentieth century music' is nothing if not well deserved." I think he probably means that the Austrian-born American composer Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) produced over 240 works in his lifetime, adopting a variety of compositional forms along the way, from late-Romantic to atonality, from neoclassicism to experimental jazz, and from modal counterpoint to twelve-tone writing, serial techniques, and electronic music. He mainly earned a living, though, by teaching, lecturing, and completing the unfinished material of other composers, and today he may be more famous for his short-lived marriage to the daughter of Gustav Mahler than for anything he composed.

Anyway, in 2016 Toccata Classics released the first volume of Krenek's complete piano concertos with Mikhail Korzhev, piano, and Kenneth Woods leading the English Symphony Orchestra. It contained the first three of Krenek's four solo piano concertos, and this second volume with the same forces contains the fourth one, along with several other, shorter concerto works that make Volume Two even more varied and interesting than the first disc.

The program begins with Krenek's Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 123, which he wrote in 1950. What I said about the performance team last year still applies: Korzhev's piano playing is scintillating, Woods's direction is warmly encouraging, and the orchestra is uniformly precise. For me, the Fourth Concerto is also the most fascinating and perhaps the most consciously modern, meaning it's nothing that you're going to go away humming, but it's something that may rivet your attention from beginning to end. Also, interestingly, Korshev, Woods, and the English Symphony give it its premiere recording. You'd think somebody in the past sixty-odd years would have found the music attractive enough to record, but I guess some things just get lost in the shuffle. Thank goodness for people like Woods championing a good cause.

Kenneth Woods

So, the first movement starts us off in a somewhat tumultuous state (marked "agitato" or agitated and "pesante" or heavy), its cadences unremitting. The second, slow movement is both lyrical and slightly atonal, which also seems a contradiction, yet works. The third and final movement is the most stylistically varied, a kind of march, and the most insistently rhythmic. Pianist Korzhev gets us through it with verve aplenty, and Maestro Woods and his players accompany him with an equal zest.

Next is the Concerto for Two Pianos, Op. 127, written in 1951, in which pianist Eric Huebner joins Mr. Korzhev. It's in four short movements and alternates between the sublime and the frenetic. The fact that I did not particularly enjoy it seems irrelevant; it's vibrant, pulsating, and dynamic in the capable hands of the soloists and orchestra.

After that is the Double Concerto for Violin and Piano, Op. 124 from 1950, with violinist Nurit Pacht joining Mr. Korzhev. This work is in six or seven movements, depending on how you break up the final one. Despite the number of movements, the whole piece is quite brief, the movements only two or three minutes each. The dialogue between the violin and piano (the violin usually dominant) is casual and intimate, the music dance-like. The performers do up the work in an elegant manner, giving it a modern yet quaintly old-fashioned feeling.

The program ends with the Little Concerto for Piano and Organ, Op. 88 from 1940, with organist Adrian Partington joining in the fun. The orchestral accompaniment is the most diminutive in this selection, the score almost salon-like in its chamber setting. The music is also at its most poetic here, the organ gently filling in a quiet background. There is nothing ostentatious about the piece, just a sweet, generally tenderhearted little ditty performed with warmth and affection.

Producer Michael Haas and engineer Ben Connellan recorded the concertos at Wyastone Concert Hall, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, Wales in September 2016. The sound is a little close and sometimes highlights instruments unnecessarily, but it nevertheless provides good orchestral depth and excellent clarity. There is nothing harsh, bright, or edgy about the sonics; indeed, it is quite the contrary, with smooth, detailed sound all the way around, especially the highs, which truly shimmer and glisten.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Dance of the Hours (CD review)

Ballet Favourites from Opera. Decca 289 458 229-2.

I've come to love compilations of older recordings. You never know what you're going to find, especially on this disc of ballet music from operas featuring some of Decca's biggest-name orchestras and conductors. The audio, recorded between 1962 and 1988 varies, of course, but most of it is good and some of it is terrific, making the whole enterprise all the more enticing.

The highlight of the disc is the title tune, "The Dance of the Hours" from Ponchielli's La Gioconda. Made digitally in 1980, it's taken at a healthy clip by Bruno Bartoletti and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Indeed, the gait is so quick the hours seem literally to fly by. But the best part is the sound. It's superbly translucent and open. This is due in part to a general absence of bass resonance, but, in fact, there's a general absence of bass, too, a common affliction of all of the pieces on the program. Nonetheless, it's clear, clean, beautiful sound and a joy to listen to.

Bruno Bartoletti

The next two pieces are Saint-Saens's "Air et danse--Bacchanale" from Samson and Delila and the ballet music from Gounod's Faust, both played by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. As always from this source, the performances are urbane and velvety smooth, and the sound, from 1987 and 1983 respectively, is warm and ambient. The thing is, although I recognize the Dutoit sound as the more natural, I still preferred the clearer sound from Bartoletti on the previous track.

Next up are the only two works I didn't care for much, Smetana's "Polka" and "Furiant" from The Bartered Bride, done by Istvan Kertesz and the Israel Philharmonic in 1962. Perhaps it's my age catching up with me, but I'm less tolerant of loud, boisterous music anymore. Mussorgsky's "Dance of the Persian slaves" from Khovanshchina, with Ernest Ansermet and the L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande from 1964, was more up my alley, lighter and more exotic. There is some small background noise here and a bit more high-end edginess, but otherwise it is a fine old recording.

Richard Bonynge and the London Symphony Orchestra do up the ballet music from Rossini's William Tell nicely, and the 1962 sound hardly shows its age. Yet I couldn't help feeling that the music itself was not quite worth the bother. Riccardo Chailly and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna do an acceptable job with the "Grand March" and ballet music from Verdi's Aida. Still, there isn't a lot of bass to reinforce the spectacle, and there should be. There follows another Saint-Saens, the "Danse de la gitane" from Henry VIII follows, again with Richard Bonynge and the LSO, this time from 1971. It holds some small interest. As does the program's concluding number, Gounod's waltz from the opera La Reine de Saba, from the same source. This is a most charming piece and bears a striking family resemblance to Gounod's second-act waltz in Faust.

At mid price, the whole affair seems a worthy purchase for listeners who don't already have favorites in some this material or just want a lot of it in one place.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 & 8 (SACD review)

Rafael Kubelik, Orchestre de Paris, Wiener Philharmoniker, Cleveland Orchestra. Pentatone PTC 5186 250 (2-disc set).

At about the time I began collecting records as a kid in 1954, the recording industry coincidentally introduced stereo to the world. So you could say stereo and I grew up together. And during those early years, it seemed like Czech conductor Rafael Kubelik (1914-1996) was everywhere. Month after month he appeared to be recording with a different orchestra somewhere in the world, leading the likes of the Chicago Symphony, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and, of course, the Czech Philharmonic, among others.

On the present reissue album, Maestro Kubelik conducts three different orchestras (Orchestre de Paris, Wiener Philharmoniker, and Cleveland Orchestra) in repertoire he must have recorded a dozen times each. OK, I exaggerate, but you get the point. Practice makes perfect, I suppose, and these remastered DG recordings come to us from a high point in his career--1973-75--just a few years before ill health began curtailing his work.

The program begins with one of Beethoven's most-cherished compositions, the Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68 "Pastorale" from 1808. It is among the composer's few programmatic pieces, describing as it does a kind of idealized bucolic scene. Beethoven starts it with an "Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside"; continues with a "Scene by the brook"; follows with a "Merry gathering of country folk"; interrupts the proceedings with some brief "Thunder and Storm"; and then concludes tranquilly with a "Shepherd's song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm."

Kubelik leads the Orchestra de Paris in a straightforward, fairly routine interpretation of these events.  In fact, the Sixth seems more casual than I'm used to hearing, not just more leisurely but more sluggish. One could argue that such a relaxed approach is just what the music needs to portray the Arcadian serenity of the countryside, but Kubelik seems to go it one further, making the music appear almost sleep-inducing. For my tastes, I prefer the old standbys from Fritz Reiner (RCA, JVC, or HDTT), Karl Bohm (DG), Bruno Walter (Sony), Otto Klemperer (EMI), and Eugen Jochum (EMI).

Disc two opens with Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92 (1812), which Kubelik performs with the Vienna Philharmonic. The composer considered it one of his best works, and during the premiere the audience demanded an encore of the second movement. In fact, conductors sometimes play the second movement by itself, separate from the rest of the symphony. One admirer, composer Richard Wagner, referred to the work's lively rhythms as the "apotheosis of the dance."

Rafael Kubelik

Here, Kubelik seems a bit more animated than he was in the "Pastorale." The Vienna Phil seems a bit more poised and precise than the Paris Orchestra, with a touch greater richness. By the time the conductor reaches the finale, he's caught fire, and the symphony ends in an appropriate blaze. As nice as Kubelik's recording is, however, I continue to favor the performances of Fritz Reiner (RCA or JVC), Colin Davis (EMI), Nicholas McGegan (PBP), Carlos Kleiber (DG), David Zinman (Arte Nova), Leonard Bernstein (Sony), and Roger Norrington (EMI).

The second disc ends with the Symphony No. 8 in F, Op. 93 (1812), a piece Beethoven called his "little Symphony in F" because his Symphony No. 6 in F is almost twice as long. The Eighth is cheerful in mood, sometimes loud, but mainly light. It is also the symphony the general public often overlooks, squeezed as it is among the longer, more prominent, and more acclaimed Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth.

Kubelik's handling of the score seems a tad too serious to me, although the second movement has a charming playfulness to it. Overall, though, it never appeared to soar or seem much more than a commonplace reading. Again I preferred several other recordings to Kubelik's, favorite recordings from Roger Norrington (Virgin), David Zinman (Arte Nova), and Eugen Jochum (Philips) in particular.

Deutsche Grammophon recorded the music in Quadraphonic at the Salle Wagram, Paris in 1973; the Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna in 1974; and Severance Hall, Cleveland in 1975. Pentatone remastered it on SACD for multichannel and two-channel stereo playback. I listened in the SACD two-channel mode.

Although the recordings span three different orchestras and halls over a period of three years, the sound is remarkably alike. In the Sixth, it's smooth and fairly clean, with a touch of soft warmth, a clear if sometimes slightly harsh high end, and little deep bass. So it's a bit thin, although it displays a moderately good depth of field and more than adequate room ambience. Perhaps the multichannel would open it up better. In the Seventh the sound appears miked a tad closer, yielding better detail but at the expense of some losing some hall ambience. Then in the Eighth, we get the best of both worlds, with good definition at a reasonable distance from the orchestra, and even a little better dynamic impact and bass response.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below: