All The Right NotesThis is probably the dullest Schumann cycle I have encountered in recent years – quite a feat in the face of similarly uninspiring traversals by Ticciati, MTT, and Gardiner (LSO) but to name a few. Not having been previously acquainted with conductor Pablo Heras-Casado’s work before, I have no idea where his repertoire affinities lie, but it’s clear that Schumann isn’t one of them.Continue readingHeras-Casado’s Soporific Schumann
Readers who are acquainted with me personally know that I am a devout admirer of Sergiu Celibidache, a conductor who made a great impression on me in my formative years and who has shaped the way I thought about music ever since. Even putting aside his philosophical predilections (and assuming that his music-making can be divorced from his musical vision at all, but that’s a topic for another day), his measured tempi and unorthodox sonority has been the source of much controversy, but even his most vehement detractors will acknowledge that his best performances could communicate so much tension and conviction that they would compel one to evaluate not only the music at hand, but one’s whole idea of what music is, afresh.Continue readingSplendid Sibelius & Stravinsky from Celi/Munich
Olivier Messiaen’s epic piano masterpiece, the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus), has been very well-served on disc ever since Yvonne Loriod’s pioneering recording on Erato, and there are great interpretations to suit every taste, from the virtuosic (Béroff, Peter Serkin, Aimard) to the reverential (Austbø, Kars), and everything in between (Osborne, Muraro, Loriod). To this distinguished list, add Bertrand Chamayou’s new recording. Chamayou’s vast expressive palette, sensitivity to color and splendid technique have been defining features of his artistry ever since his standard-setting complete recordings of Liszt’s Années de pélerinage and Ravel’s piano works. And in the Vingt Regards, there is probably no pianist today better suited for the job of realizing Messiaen’s unprecedented expressive and technical demands.Continue readingChamayou Triumphs in Messiaen’s Regards
Andris Nelsons has recorded some of this repertoire quite successfully for Orfeo with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This set, despite featuring two top-class orchestras in the form of the Boston Symphony and Leipzig Gewandhaus, is nowhere near as good. It seems that over these intervening decade Nelsons has lost much of that vigor and inspiration informing his earlier work: here what we have is for the most part a tired conductor dragging his two hapless orchestras over the finish line. Continue readingAndris Nelsons’ Crashingly Disappointing Strauss
