This recording, the first
fruits of Marin Alsop’s new post as Music Director of the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the first of three promised
live versions of Dvořák symphonies, has already received
widespread acclaim. Not least, has it been proclaimed
Bargain
of the Month by my colleague Bob Briggs – see
review.
In a sense, I am merely gilding the lily in echoing his
words of praise. If her sojourn in Baltimore is to be as
productive as this, it may even eclipse her very successful
period with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
I thought the opening
just a shade tentative – maybe those reviews had led me
to expect perfection from the start – but what at first
seemed a hesitant approach soon established itself as sensitivity
on the part of conductor and orchestra alike. There’s some
really hushed and reverential playing in places, yet with
plenty of fire when called for. Passages which I had thought
merely wistful emerge from this interpretation with a greater
sense of their delicacy.
By the end of the first
movement I was completely won over and nothing afterwards
dispelled that feeling. Music which has become hackneyed
through (ab)use in commercials, like the ‘far away and
long ago’ theme in the second movement emerge fresh in
this performance.
The Scherzo really scampers
along and the Finale is equally fine. BB refers to the
catharsis which Alsop finds in the close of the Finale.
I know that this will not be to all tastes but it rings
true. The storm clouds are there well before that conclusion
for those who listen – and Alsop makes me hear them as
I’ve never heard them before. This is no merely exultant
Finale – there are thoughts here that lie too deep for
tears.
I’ve seen one blog which
characterises this performance as mediocre, comparing it
adversely with Naxos’s earlier version by Stephen Gunzenhauser;
it doesn’t mention the ending, but I suspect that was in
the writer’s mind, together with the slight tentativeness
which I noted at the beginning. This performance is, in
fact, anything but mediocre. I haven’t heard Gunzenhauser’s
New
World, but his Naxos versions of the earlier symphonies,
(very) serviceable as they are, are left standing by this
Alsop Ninth.
I first got to know this
symphony as a teenager in a performance by Charles Groves
and the Liverpool Phil in my home town of Blackburn – free
admission in return for programme selling and ushering – and
that performance, which knocked my socks off at the time,
has remained my benchmark ever since, even over and above
the first LP version which I bought – a rather swishy Supraphon
pressing of Karel Ančerl’s classic performance. The
other Groves performance which has remained with me ever
since provided my introduction to Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Sheherazade.
I don’t think that even Groves dug this deeply into the
music.
Hitherto my version of
choice, matching that Groves benchmark, has been that of
Rafael Kubelík in its DG Privilege incarnation with the
Scherzo
Capriccioso; it’s currently available on Australian
Eloquence for around £5 (469 623 2) coupled with Smetana’s
Vltava,
or on DG Originals for around £8.50 (447 412 2), more expensive
but also more generously coupled with the Eighth Symphony.
After that Supraphon LP, I owned both of Isvan Kertesz’s
Decca recordings – he, too remains a strong contender:
the complete symphonies on 430 046 2 (around £9), 8 and
9 on 475 7517 (around £8.50), or nos. 5, 7, 8 & 9 on
Eloquence 467 472 2 (also around £8.50).
My allegiance to Kubelík
is not dented. His grasp of the music still seems to me
intuitively correct and the ADD recording wears its age
well – but henceforth this Alsop version will provide an
excellent alternative. If push comes to shove – and I do
have a rule not to keep two versions of any piece of music – I’m
not sure which one would have to go. All I can say is that
Alsop has shown me aspects of the music which I had never
noticed before.
I’m pleased that Naxos
have included the
Symphonic Variations and that
they have been placed first – fine as they are, I wouldn’t
want to hear them, or anything else, straight after the
New
World Symphony. This is first-class music, too little
known; the performance here should go some way to redressing
that neglect.
The recording is first-rate
throughout. I could have wished that the download version
had been made available at 320kbps, as many of the Chandos-sourced
recordings on classicsonline are; better still would have
been to offer a lossless version – wma or wav. How about
it in future? 192kbps gives a very good approximation of
the original CD sound –it’s all that BBC Radio 3 offers,
at the best of times, with 160kbps when
Test Match Special is
on. With faster broadband connections now, most people
would prefer the extra fidelity. Give it a try; if you
find the sound inadequate – and I certainly didn’t – remember
that the CD is not much more expensive.
The full original booklet
comes with the download. It’s not quite so convenient as
what Chandos provide with their downloads – single pages
rather than a 2-page spread – but it’s very nice to have
it. Cutting and stapling is inevitably a little fussy:
again, if you can’t be bothered, buy the CD. The notes
in the booklet are of Keith Anderson’s usual quality, though
the English version stops one word short of completion
before going on to describe the Baltimore SO – you need
to read the German translation for the missing word ‘Stimmung’.
The cover is tastefully
designed, as usual, though surely Naxos with their seemingly
inexhaustible supply of 18
th and 19
th-century
illustrations could have produced something contemporary
with the
New World Symphony.
Whichever way you acquire
this recording, I cannot imagine that you will be seriously
disappointed. Even if you have a favourite account of the
symphony, do try this one.
Brian Wilson
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin
Alsop 
[64:44] 
