Tchaikovsky_The_Symphonies

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Tchaikovsky_The_Symphonies

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Tchaikovsky · The Symphonies · Wiener Philharmoniker · Lorin Maazel
APE+CUE 1.3 GB | MP3 HQ 461 MB | EASY CD-DA 12 | No Log | Booklet | 5 Cds | RAR 3% rec. | 1965/64 | © 1991

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Tchaikovsky_The_Symphonies

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"The Six Symphonies" it says on the very handsome box, complete with booklet, in which this issue comes: and I only murmur that there is also the Manfred Symphony, just because it gets forgotten, which is a pity. With a bulk issue of this sort, one must take the rough with the smooth, of course; though there is nothing remotely rough about the marvellous playing of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, nor about the recordings which are of great vividness. Nor, indeed, could that adjective be applied to anything Maazel does: though no interpreter could play these six symphonies in a way that suits every listener.

There is a basic question mark over Maazel's interpretation of the first three, and especially over No. 1. One admires any conductor who can make less than first-rate music sound better than it is—and most older readers will immediately think of Beecham, that old wizard. But the result must still sound what the composer intended musically. Can Maazel's idea of the first movement of Tchaikovsky No. 1 be said to do this ? It is far too fast for tranquillo, let alone the composer's description of it as "daydreams on a wintry road". So he gets into trouble at the second subject which for contrast, has to be too slow. The next movement may be effective, undeniably, but it is too fast for Tchaikovsky's "Oh, land of gloom; Oh, land of mist".

There is so much to admire but a good deal that is too slick. The music of the first movement of No. 2 is mostly just lively—but how can anyone throw away that gorgeously expressive phrase (from 8 before F, Eulenburg score) marked espressivo and a sudden foretaste of the passionate Tchaikovsky that was to come, as Maazel does ? Maazel is on surer ground in the much-recorded symphonies, 4 to 6. Those melting diminuendi on the string chords in the introduction to No. 4 are lovely; the start of the horn solo in the slow movement of No. 5 is simply ravishing in the way the player enters—and the playing of that theme by the cellos is an equal delight. But my plus marks are for the orchestra and rather less for the conductor who, given that orchestra, could hardly go far wrong in the later symphonies they know so well, even if he does make every horn entry in No. 5 sound as if it were the main thing, to the point of sometimes making their mere notes sounding quite idiotically important.

There are marvellously dramatic moments, even though the first movement of No. 6 is too fast for real string power—it's an easy way of getting excitement when you have this quality of orchestra, though even this quality of orchestra sounds in a bit of a panic, as well they might. But putting all this aside, I can't help asking a few questions, the more pertinent in this sort of bulk buy. In No. 4 why can I not hear the woodwind entry in the 7th bar before letter C? Maazel gives an extremely convincing performance of this movement, but this entry is totally inaudible. Where has the woodwind gone in the next movement at 9 etc. after D. In No. 5, why does the oboe soloist in the slow movement enter a quaver too late from bar 112? A VPO player must surely know this symphony—or why did nobody notice it on a play-back ?
September 1970. Page 105 Gramophone