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Site review by Castor April 22, 2006
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Performance: Sonics (MC): |
This wonderful series of Weingartner orchestral works goes from strength to strength.
As with the others so far issued, the listener will discover music full of rich melodic invention and an unfailingly beautiful sound world.
The two works recorded here were written in 1908 when the 45 year-old composer had just completed his unhappy first year as director of the Vienna Court Opera, following the departure of Mahler from the post, but had fallen deeply in love with a young singer Lucille Marcel who eventually became his third wife.
The Lustige Overture (10.20) is a Till Eulenspiegel-like piece that teems with lively and memorable ideas and features some ‘Telarc style’ bass drum thwacks that, between 6m11s and 6m 24s, produced a couple of ominous loud cracks from my front right- hand speaker. Strangely, this only happened in multi-channel so it may just be a fault on my copy.
The huge four-movement Symphony No.3 (65m) that follows is the most impressive of those recorded, so far, by CPO. It is scored for a large orchestra including six horns and an ad libitum organ, which is used here to great effect.
Weingartner’s new found love obviously unleashed this outpouring of passionate Straussian music that reaches its climax in one of the most gorgeous slow movements I have heard and whose peroration is crowned by the entry of the organ.
The joyous finale is quite unusual with its echoes of both Strauss and Mahler and a captivating Viennese waltz towards the end, but Weingartner handles his material with consummate skill and does manage to avoid it sounding an anti-climax to the preceding three movements.
Marko Letonja conducts throughout with his usual flare, and the excellent Sinfonieorchester Basel responds with total commitment and feeling for the idiom.
Once again the sound from this SACD is magnificently vivid with a wide dynamic range and in MC a convincing realisation of the acoustic space.
Anyone who has enjoyed any of the earlier releases should not hesitate to get this one. I hope that we will not have to wait too long for the remaining symphonies to appear.
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Copyright © 2006 Graham Williams and SA-CD.net
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Review by audio-grubi August 14, 2006 (4 of 8 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S/MC): / |
Got this recording some days ago and about the "ominous loud cracks" from the right front-channel in the multi-channel recording of the "Lustige Ouvertüre": Have the same problem twice times at 6 min. 12 sec. and 6 min. 18 sec. and it's really VERY loud(!) and no fun to hear.
So it is'nt just a defect of Mr. Williams cpoy but propably of the whole production/multi-channel mix.
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Review by jlaurson October 10, 2007 (3 of 4 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics (S): |
| Felix Weingartner (1863-1942, he, of conducting fame) is a bona fide composer, too – and fits right into above crowd. Take his Third Symphony coupled with the Lustige Ouvertüre op.53 and you get a pastiche of styles that combines (in the best imaginable fashion) the great romantics that came before him. Meistersinger meet Musorgsky, Strauss (both, Richard and Johann junior), a tad Bruckner, a third movement that sounds like Mahler with a dull blade (this is not derision!) and ends with a very Wagnerian final chord. In the last movement you hear yourself vis-à-vis Offenbach. Add excellent playing from the Sinfonieorchester Basel under Marko Letonja (unknown forces to me, until now) and great sound and you have a romantic winner with a big smile and an even bigger heart.
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