| Site review by Geohominid December 1, 2007
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Such riches! Only a few months after Hickox's Elgar First Symphony comes this one from Brabbins. This marvellous work is in my view one of the masterpieces of the C20th symphonic canon, and one of Elgar's most brilliant scores. And it has long been a personal favourite since my days of listening to Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra. It was the Hallé who premièred the work in 1908 under Richter. Barbirolli himself often played under Elgar's baton as a cellist, and it has been his 1962 version with the Philharmonia which has been my touchstone, despite many other fine versions on CD.
I have to admit to being disappointed with Hickox's Chandos SACD version, as I felt my attention wandering quite often, and it left little lasting impression, although listening to it during this review period has made me respect it more. I was very anxious to hear what Brabbins and the Flemish Radio Orchestra would make of Elgar.
The 'Kingdom' Prelude comes first on the disk, and is no mere make-weight, but a symphonic study in itself. Brabbins captures Elgar's serious bardic mood at the opening, and develops it into a dignified and majestic tone-painting, as dark and glowing as an old master, truly inspirational. But what took my breath in the first few seconds was the quality of the recording. It is in the style of the MFT Mahler symphony series, a wide and deep panorama with a considerable contribution from the auditorium - in this case the reverberant Studio 4 at Flagey, Brussels. You need to turn up the volume quite a bit to find the 'sweet' level for your room and ambient noise level, then you will be rewarded with a spectacular and natural recording of a symphony orchestra in DSD 5.0. The stereo layer is very fine, missing none of the richness and deep bass of the MC layer, but still needs the extra volume boost.
The climaxes expand into the space with room to spare, and the brass in particular excite the acoustic thrillingly. Adding to the recording's impact, a frisson-making bass drum underlines the rich and strong lower registers. At last, a really good bass drum! This is a really important acquisition for an orchestra. When Decca producer John Culshaw began his historic recording of The Ring with the VPO, he reported that one of the first things he had to do was to buy them a top quality bass drum to replace the feeble one they had been using for decades! Percussion aside, the amount of detail in the orchestra is first class; one doesn't need to follow a score to follow the inner details, everything is transparently clear, despite the ample acoustic. Something of an engineering triumph, I think.
What of Brabbins' performance of the symphony? This work is cyclical in that it hinges around a long-breathed 'noble and simple' melody heard at the start. All the other material derives from this 'motto' as Elgar called it, and it is transformed in each movement, finally to emerge triumphantly in the work's closing pages. The best performances have a forward momentum with this sense of transfiguration and final destination always in mind, as Barbirolli demonstrates superbly. Elgar's moods, like the clouds scudding across the sun, range from buoyant and boundless confidence, through wildness and near despair, to moments of delicate fantasy (his feminine influences?). There is no time to linger and savour these, the whole point of the symphony is the constant current, ebb and flow. Brabbins has embraced this and inspires his orchestra to a blazing performance, in which the FRO are fully engaged, their playing simply electric, as if they were risk-taking at a live performance.
The first movement is taken quite fast (over three and a half minutes faster than Barbirolli and faster than Hickox), but it never feels rushed. Indeed this allows the mercurial wildness in the score to register properly, and the evanescent fantasy interludes skip by like fleeting thoughts - but the sense of forward flow is unerring.
The scherzo is a tour-de-force, starting with deep bass pizzicati and soft touches of the big bass drum before the strings enter with their jagged, swaggering militaristic theme. This is so brilliantly played that the movement seems much faster than other performances, but in timing is within a few seconds of both Barbirolli and Hickox. It grinds to a halt and there is a magically hushed transition into a slow movement of Mahlerian intensity, in which we find that the first few notes of the new theme are those from the jagged scherzo. Brabbins takes this movement quite fast, about a minute shorter than Barbirolli and nearly three minutes shorter than Hickox. Again, there is no sense of rush; the phrasing is sweetly tender and the textures rich, so that the underlying urgency of the wonderful melodies makes for an even deeper emotional experience. The uniquely-scored lingering coda is given its full due, and the distant muted brass comments near the end have never sounded more touching.
After a brooding introduction to the last movement, wildness returns and the strings tear headlong into their main theme with a tremendous sense of excitement and purpose. After the great central climax, there is a crucial passage when Elgar suddenly reveals his next surprise, and launches a new surging melody which we realise is the smoothed out version of the opening string theme. Barbirolli and Brabbins joyously make the most of this discovery, surging away with this great tune. It always brings a picture to my mind of Elgar on his bicycle, pedalling away down a Worcestershire lane in the dappled sunlight of a perfect summer's day. The harp has propulsive arpeggios below the melody, best heard in Barbirolli's recording, and also clearly audible with Brabbin. Hickox, however, holds back at this point for a while, and his swinging melody disappointingly takes its time to ignite. The final pages of Brabbin's reading are simply stunning, the motto theme having finally gained its ascendancy, the whole orchestra greeting it with elation. The strings swoop up and down like Elgar's dogs prancing and leaping around their master in greeting, the brass produce gusts of sound as if to sweep away all doubts. A most satisfying few seconds of dying reverberation follow the final chord.
It will be evident that I am enthusiastic about this Glossa disc. Without doubt it is my SACD of 2007 and I simply can't keep it out of my player. I would rate it as amongst the very best of the Elgar Symphony in A flat, and arguably the best recorded. What a wonderful follow up Brabbins and the splendid Flemish Radio Orchestra could give us with a Second Symphony, and, dare we hope, a Falstaff! More, please, Glossa.
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Copyright © 2007 John Miller and SA-CD.net
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| Review by Adrian Cue June 22, 2012 (9 of 9 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (MC): |
A late reaction, but in view of the discussion I thought that it might be useful for those still making up their mind about which one to go for.
Well, as far as I am concerned, this one is a real disappointment. I should have known better. I got this disk cheaply by mail order from ‘the best second hand music shop in Paris’. The positive side, however, is that Richard Hickox’s account with the BBC Welsh Orchestra seems now so much better than I thought at the time. The main culprit, so it seems to me, is not Martyn Brabbins, but rather the recording and, to a lesser extent, the orchestra.
To start with the sound: Muffled, unfocused and too much weight at the lower end. The violins drown in the roaring sound of the kettle drums and the like. And when the volume increases, the mid-range disappears. It is difficult to locate and place the different instruments and instrumental groups. The violins appear to be coming from both ends and the photograph in the booklet does not support the idea that the maestro had chosen for a split left-right between first and second violins. Solo parts came out better, maybe due to direct miking. And in the slow movement the sound stage is less muddied. But on the whole it made for rather tiresome listening.
As for the orchestra: Right from the start one notices the wind instruments missing by a fraction the constant beat of the basses. Judging by the extensive list of musical participants, one wonders if the Flemish Radio Orchestra had not been reinforced with borrowed and hence less integrated musicians from elsewhere. Furthermore, at the time of the recording sessions there was talk about restructuring the three Flemish orchestras (the Flemish Opera Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Filharmonie in Antwerp and the Radio Orchestra in Brussels), telescoping three into two, or even into one ‘world class’ orchestra. This is, of course, is not reassuring for potentially disappearing musicians.
(For all I know now, nothing much has, so far, happened. The Radio Orchestra is now renamed into Brussels Philharmonic, The Flemish Opera Orchestra is still in existence, and the Filharmonie has moved up the quality ladder with the help of such conductors as Philippe Herreweghe, Jaap van Zweeden and now Edo de Waart, back from Hong Kong).
Against this background I find it difficult to appraise Martyn Brabbins. The overall structure of Elgar’s monumental symphony is firmly stated, but I wonder to what extent he was able to convey the true vein of Elgar. Also, because so much detail has simply been washed away by the bad recording. What a pity! In direct comparison with Richard Hickox, I immediately felt ‘back home in the world of Elgar’.
The Kingdom prelude comes of relatively well, giving a positive start to those who play that track first. Since I started with the Symphony, my first impression was negative and this, admittedly, influenced me in my overall appreciation. Sadly no recommendation.
Adrian Cue
France
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