MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £12 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

Sound Samples and Downloads

Serge PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Romeo and Juliet - ballet suite op. 64 [39:08]
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Romeo and Juliet - Fantasy Overture [21:37]
BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra/Tadaki Otaka
rec. 11-12 February 1991, Brangwyn Hall, Swansea. DDD
NIMBUS NI 5306 [61:00]

Experience Classicsonline


 
Otaka is a conductor I now follow closely – rather belated, I grant you. The trigger was his Rachmaninov - first the piano concertos with Lill and then the symphonies. His readings impress and so do the Nimbus recordings made in the Brangwyn Hall. Interestingly his teachers were Keilberth, Sawallisch, Matacic and Saito. With this disc he turns his hand to two Russians' ways with Romeo and Juliet.
 
For the 40 minute eight movement ballet suite by Prokofiev Otaka takes the way of fragile delicacy and luxuriant epic tempi. Certainly he will not be rushed.
 
The movements are mixed and matched from the three suites for dramatic effect. They are:-  
  • Montagues and Capulets
  • The Child Juliet
  • Dance
  • Dance of the Antilles Girls
  • Morning Dance
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Romeo at the Grave of Juliet
  • Death of Tybalt
  • The recording delivers in sheer horsepower as well as in subtlety. The first can be appreciated in the contrast between whispered tension and blurted out fortissimo in the first movement. The way the solo cello pages reach out to you from the RH speaker in The Child Juliet at 1.46 is unique and most tellingly done. Those fortissimos might perhaps be criticised only in that they spread across the loudspeakers' field of fire. I did not hear quite the super-spectacular sense of overwhelming volume that I found in a less nuanced but impressive reading such as that by Muti. Otaka's deliberation often pays off but there are some moments which communicate less than convincingly as with the trumpet solo at Romeo at the Grave of Juliet at 1:29 which is just too languid for its own good. This collection will suit you if you would like a change from hectic possessed readings. Otaka suits me very well not least because he excels at the extremes of yielding innocence and black tragedy. At Otaka's broader pace detail after detail emerges to satisfying effect. If you fear that he weakens the faster movements try the final one in this sequence: Death of Tybalt which fairly pelts along.
     
    The Tchaikovsky is very well known. My prime recommendations here are the raw Ovchinnikov on Olympia and above all the LSO/Monteux from 1960 on Vanguard. Otaka's approach is typically studied and controlled so that every detail and nuance of emotion registers. Once again though you will need to be ready for a more lingering pace - might be just the ticket after Ovchinnikov's whirlwind. Every strand is exhibited and score-reading should be a delight for this reason. Please do not think that this is a reading without drama. Hearing the piercing sawing sound at 13:44 soon banishes such fears. A good and distinctively personal take on a warhorse tone poem.
     
    The liner-notes are by David Gutman. They are good but I am not sure how apposite the cover illustration is. It’s William Dyce's Francesca (not Francesco as the liner claims) da Rimini. Not that I would not like to hear Otaka in Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini.
     
    A good intelligently conceived pairing, steady of pulse, grippingly and transparently recorded and totally committed.
     
    Rob Barnett
     

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.