The Liturgique goes
back to 1949 for its first recording,
only four years after the Symphony was
completed. This was a rather subfusc
Parisian set under the composer and
it’s recently been revivified by Music
& Arts. Adherents will have the
Dutoit cycle of all the symphonies perhaps,
though when it comes to the Liturgique
Karajan’s recording has long been a
lodestar of orchestral refinement and
compelling narrative drama.
Recorded
with great presence in Wellington Town
Hall with an orchestra straining at
the bit and a conductor displaying assurance,
this is a fine addition to the composer’s
symphonic discography. The first movement
ostinati are excellent, lower brass
potent and the strings play with sinewy,
sinuous direction. The rhythm is well
sprung. Though they don’t match the
sheer beauty of tone of the Berlin orchestra
in its heyday there is still nothing
small scale about the NZSO – listen
to the fine tonal blend of the violas
and cellos in the Adagio (De Profundis
Clamavi), a movement that may well
be the best known but here is perfectly
scaled. Even as the music grows darker,
at around 5.30 the subsequent outbursts
are controlled and the transition to
the earlier material is as if translucent,
as if in dreamlike veil. The March rhythms
of the finale are well balanced by the
crude brazenness of the writing and
by the consoling hopefulness of the
conclusion. A fine performance, this,
well deserving of your time.
The
couplings are mostly the usual suspects,
which makes me suspect this is a one-off
and not a symphonic cycle. Still Rugby
emerges with its colourfully oppositional
martial machinery intact – not surprising
that a New Zealand band can dig into
this piece with relish – and the trumpeters
acquit themselves with honour in their
tough play in the Mouvement Symphonique
No. 3. After the passion and drive
comes the calm – and balm – of Pastorale
d’été, which traces
his (1920) self, all colour and nature-depicting
impressionism, with tact and glint and
shade.
For
Honegger aficionados, who will have
these many times over, maybe this is
an indulgence, though a very cheap one
and a very worthwhile one. For others
this is a real contender, excellently
recorded, and finely played.
Jonathan
Woolf
see
also reviews by Terry
Barfoot and Paul
Shoemaker
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra/Takuo
Yuasa 
