In this 1979 performance, Lovro von Matacic faces much the same
problem as did Bernard Haitink in his concert Mahler Sixth with
the same orchestra (V4937): how to forge a plausible performance
with a miscast orchestra. It's not a matter of indifferent or
spotty discipline - in that respect, the Orchestre National actually
improves on its French predecessors - but rather that the players
seem uncomfortable, or unfamiliar, with the appropriate style
and sound for the music. Von Matacic was an experienced, energetic
Brucknerian - he also recorded this symphony in the studio, with
the Czech Philharmonic (Supraphon) but here he has to work hard
to move his sometimes balky forces.
Steady, spacious bass pizzicatos set the right tone for the first movement.
The following brass chorales have a bright, small-bore sound
rather than a broad Germanic one; but they're well-balanced,
and sound more "present" than the muffled answering
tuttis! The conductor keeps the tutti at 3:50
moving in tempo, but it sounds ungainly. The solo woodwinds
sound delicious in the barer textures of the second theme-group
-- indeed, the woodwind playing is luminous throughout. The
unmarked ritard at 7:33, while not a bad idea, sounds a bit
careful. The big attack at 12:29 hangs fire, and that at 13:07
sounds unfocused -- it's as if the middles of the chords were
missing. von Matacic hurtles into the tutti at 15:13
with litheness; but the second group's return, beginning at
15:48, turns sluggish, and the winding down at 17:56 is again
stiff. The conductor recaptures some momentum at 18:42, but
he begins hurtling forward from 19:02 through the coda, producing
an exciting finish but dissipating some of the movement's
hard-earned power.
At the start of the Adagio, von Matacic has the usual problem:
after the strings have established a triplet pulse, the oboe's
duplet melody inevitably sounds stiff -- only Wand, in his
Berlin concert recording (RCA), somehow overcomes this. Perhaps
von Matacic's initial tempo is marginally too slow: after
1:38 the upper and lower strings seem on the verge of coming
unstuck, and the clarinet triplets at 1:57 sound like duplets.
At 2:38, the string sound is big and heartfelt, the basses
perhaps too insistent. There's nobility and grandeur in the
aspiring passage at 5:01,
as well as some co-ordination problems, threatening ensemble,
after 5:42. The tutti at 7:33 is stiff, but von Matacic draws a nice sense
of mystery in the sparser textures at 10:02 and 12:06, where
the woodwind blend and attack are uniformly excellent. Unfortunately,
the slow buildup to the climax, beginning at 14:52, is deadly
note-spinning, one damned beat at a time, with no sense of
the long, arching phrases. The trombones, at least, restore
some of the lost nobility at 16:07.
The Scherzo begins precipitately - it's the sort of impulsive
miscalculation that might well occur in concert - and while
it settles down shortly, the playing remains nervous. The
punctuating chords at 0:33 are soggy, and there's a fair amount
of iffy co-ordination: the passage at 1:30,
recurring at 4:36, with all those entrances on the off
beats, is particularly untidy. Once again, it's the lighter
textures - at 1:45, 2:28, and in the Trio - that go best,
with a pleasing delicacy, and the Trio's end has a nice rustic
flavor, though the Scherzo recap once again grows excitable.
The Finale is a case of swings and roundabouts, alternating
moments of insight with wasted opportunities, well-considered
details with smudged and uncertain ones. The bold, resonant
bass attack on the fugue at 1:40, matched by the upper strings
on their entries, is impressive, but none of the parts maintain
the same crispness as they continue. The second subject's
ease and lightness (2:49) are appropriate, but the harmonic
shift at 4:28 is too matter-of-fact. The brass chorale at
6:36 is imposing, but the upper strings' response is insecure,
and the trombones supporting the trumpet at 7:36 sound a bit
wheezy - and so forth. von Matacic infuses the movement with
enough energy that it's effective overall, but too much of
it is devoted to just getting through.
This isn't a basic library choice, though von Matacic's occasional
insights are worth studying. The glorious Wand/Berlin performance
remains the pick among commercial accounts.
Stephen
Francis Vasta
