| Site review by Polly Nomial March 24, 2006
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Compared to Paavo Jarvi's pedestrian version of Petrouchka (Stravinsky: Petrouchka, Firebird Suite etc - Järvi), this is everything one could wish for - life, vitality, characterisation and a vivid recording to boot! This may be due to the disc being a concert memento (well 3 performances for each piece actually) but either way, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons completely outplay and conduct their Telarc rivals. Right from the opening, Jansons & his orchestra realise that to make exciting music, one needs not (just) speed but accents and an understanding of the musical counterpoint that is audibly conveyed. Added to this the engineers capture the sound very well giving a flattering (but not falsely so) sonic picture of the RCO. A nice feature of the Petrouchka is that each part of each Tableau is given its own track (15 in total). This is playing that has one on the edge of the seat, eager for more. Throughout the soloists from the orchestra are faultless and the audience is so impressed, it is hard to tell that there is an audience present!
This one of three SA-CD's of the Symphonic Dances that I have the pleasure of owning - reviews of the others (Rachmaninov: The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Dances - Jurowski and Rachmaninov: Complete Symphonies & Orchestral Works - Edo de Waart) will follow in due course. This one is possibly the most opulently played & recorded (the RFH lends a dry sound to the LPO disc) but combined with a similar level of electricity to that which Jurowski finds. There is wonderfully characteristic playing from the RCO (don't forget the superb cycle they made for Ashkenazy on Decca back in the early 1980's) and a sense of real refinement. Details are plentiful but they are allowed to come through naturally (no spotlighting here). Tempi for all three movements are well judged but against Jurowski, some will find them a little safe (particularly in the finale) and they may be thought on a par with de Waart's. As in the Stravinsky, the RCO is allowed a wonderful sense of fantasy and they exhibit keen musical intelligence. One point to note is that the final stroke on the tam-tam (gong) is not allowed to die as much as either rival disc before the applause breaks.
(Purchased)
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Copyright © 2006 John Broggio and SA-CD.net
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| Review by nickc December 22, 2005 (10 of 10 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (MC): |
Absolute dream coupling, great performances with reference quality sound - do I need to say any more?
Petrushka is one of Stravinsky's three seminal early-twentieth century ballets; the story of a puppet at a fair who comes to life and is spurned by his love, the Ballerina. He finally is killed by his rival the Moor but his ghost lives on to haunt. I originally thought the bustle of the opening fairground scene was slighlty low-key but Ramesh's excellent review has reminded me it's not right to start at a hundred miles an hour. (Jansons' timings are almost identical to both Jarvi/Cincinatti and Colin Davis's rendition with this very orchestra from the late 70s). All the succeeding dances are strongly characterised - I've never noticed the strong hint of the Rite about 1'40" into the Blackamoor as much before.
Although written in Los Angeles Rachmaninov's Dances are as Russian as ice floating down the Neva - when it comes to sweeping romanticism and nostalgia there was nobody like Sergei. Just listening to the Concertgebouw is a joy in itself - from the brazen outbursts of the first movement to the skirling and spectral winds of the ghostly waltz to the burnished brass and deep strings in the Alleluya section of the last movement.
The sound in MC is absolutely reference quality - I think it may even take over from my beloved Ivan Fischer Dvorak 8 and 9. Really, if there is a better acoustic than the Concertgebouw for surging romantic music I've yet to hear it! This is an Everett Porter Polyhymnia preduction - turn the volume way up and you are just buffeted in what I can only call piles of sound. I much preferred this than the Mahler 3 and 9 with Chailly as sound. Christophe Huss from ClassicsToday.com in France gave it a 6/10 for sound - not as bizarre as his rating for the Hyperion Shostakovich piano concertos but still way too harsh I thought: ignore that!
As you can imagine - my advice is to buy!
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| Review by thepilot February 3, 2006 (5 of 5 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
| This is a feast for the ears and for the heart, because the sound quality is exemplary, the hall surrounds the listener, the instruments sound glorious (the strings are to die for, the brass will knock you out of your room, and the woodwinds are velvety) and the performances are stunning. The Stravinsky is a little bit cautious, but in Symphonic Dances Jansons pulls all the stops.Must have, more please from RCO and Jansons.
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| Review by jmvilleneuve August 22, 2007 (7 of 9 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (MC): |
A common occurrence is to purchase a recording for a main piece, but after listening to it you end up loving some « filler » music much more than the music that made you buy it in the first place. This is what happened to me here, I bought this recording for the Stravinsky which if find great sonically but missing a childish/magical ingredient. But I was delighted by the Rachmaninoff. I always found the symphonic dances spectacular but badly constructed and lacking depth. This version was a revelation for me, the energy and vision of the conductor gave this music a unity of purpose that captivated me from beginning to end.
This recording is live so this excuses certain things but I want to discuss the only weak point of this SACD. The sound take is obviously the result of multi-miking and the sound engineer(s) went overboard with it. At many spots in this recording there is not a realistic image of a full symphonic orchestra, more like a “zoom” on specific instruments, and sometimes that perspective change so quickly that the ear gets confused.
This is compensated (maybe the good aspect of multi-miking) by an hyper-clarity of all instruments that are each vividly captured. The image is solid, the dynamic stellar and there is good balance of all frequencies (e.g. thrilling mid-bass, stellar highs, etc.) There is a good feeling of the acoustic of the concert hall from the softest solos to the full orchestral tuttis.
I rate the overall music on this SACD at 4 out of 5, but I give the interpretation of the Symphonic Dances 5 out of 5. There are many difficult transitions in this music but Mariss Jansons manages all of them with brio. The first movement (as the third) has a general form of fast-slow-fast. At the end of the slow section (from 7:30 to 8:30) the conductor leads a gorgeous transition out of the slow section that seems nearly magical. After repeated listening of this single passage I think the secret is for the conductor not to accelerate too quickly and as the orchestration becomes richer there is a sense of build-up without needing to accelerate too quickly. So by the time we reach the re-exposition of the main theme we did not loose contact with the music.
For a more complete review and much more on my web site, check
http://www.geocities.com/jmserre/ENRachDances.html
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| Review by jeffreybehr May 18, 2012 (5 of 10 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (MC): |
This will address the 'Symphonic Dances', for which I bought the disc. I've not yet listened to the Stravinsky.
I find the performance excellent--energetic and assertively conducted when the music requires that and tender when the music needs that. I find the recording also excellent...quite natural and, interesting in light of another's comments, NOT spotlited. All instruments sounded about in the right place left-to-right and front-to-back and also at about the right relative level. My only quibble was that it was recorded in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam in concert, meaning that the orchestra was in its normal position on stage, and that means there's not much sound to the space around it. But I'll keep this recording and play it often.
Well done, RCO Live!
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