When a guest conductor takes the helm of a world-class ensemble
for so well-worn a piece as
Scheherazade, the temptation
must be great to let the orchestra coast into a kind of competent
routine. So I'm glad to report that Takuo Yuasa brings a distinctive
profile to his performance.
Yuasa lets the first movement unfold patiently; the tempo isn't
exaggeratedly drawn out, as with Rostropovich (EMI) and Mehta/Los
Angeles (Decca), yet there's a sense of heroic breadth. At the
start of the second movement, the bassoon pensively explores
its options; the oboe picks up the pace and tightens the rhythm
just enough to get things going. In the central episode, the
brass interjections are impressive, captured in deep sound. The
love music flows spaciously, with the textures becoming airier
as the theme repeats in a higher key. Yuasa "leans" on
the dynamics to make the phrases strongly directional, and a
surging, passionate impulse moves the music into its final climactic
passages. Once past the slow introduction, the bouncy, dancing
rhythm of the finale's main theme provides an energy that carries
the movement through its diverse episodes, to the ominous
tutti return
of the motto theme.
The London Philharmonic responds well, and alertly, to Yuasa's
leadership. The string sound emphasizes dark warmth rather than
shimmer, and the brass are weighty and full-toned. Nicely done,
even if it doesn't really challenge the classic Ansermet (Decca)
and Stokowski (Decca, originally Phase Four) accounts, or the
newercomers from Svetlanov (Melodiya and EMI) and Temirkanov
(RCA).
This
Scheherazade was accompanied by Prokofiev's
Lieutenant
Kijé suite on its original Eminence issue; this time
around, EMI substitutes a smorgasbord of complementary items
from the nooks and crannies of its back catalogue, presumably
consigning the
Kijé to digital limbo in the process.
Marriner's
Flight of the Bumblebee is pleasing: the chamber-sized
orchestra allows for clarity as well as dexterity, with the "buzzing" figure
always clearly registering against the pizzicatos and such, and
the sound is clear and warm.
Since Beecham's
Polovtsian Dances originally came in harness
with his own
Scheherazade - which I always liked less
than I was told I should - it slips easily into place here. The
performance is sparkling and colorful, gracious in the lyric
passages, but almost never barbaric. The inclusion of the chorus,
as in the opera, adds timbral variety; the choral sound is good,
but the men and women almost come unstuck from each other in
[track 8], and in the final coda the massed chorus isn't quite
dead in sync with the orchestra. Oddly, the sound on this fifty-year
old analog recording is markedly
brighter than the digital
recordings preceding it!
The three Khachaturian dances seem a "bitty" way to
round off the program. The string playing is rough-edged in Kurtz's
Masquerade Waltz,
but the composer himself makes us appreciate his music afresh.
In his hands, the fragile introduction to the
Spartacus Adagio
sets up the movement tenderly, the climactic
tutti expansive
rather than tawdry; the
Sabre dance is crisp and brilliant,
but not vulgar.
Stephen Francis Vasta
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Takuo
Yuasa 
