Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op 64 (1911-15)
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Vladimir Jurowski
rec. live, 22 and 24 February, 2019, Konzerthaus Berlin.
DSD/DDD
Reviewed as downloaded from surround sound press preview
PENTATONE PTC5186802 SACD
[48:58]
Vladimir Jurowski made a previous recording of the Alpine Symphony
just over three years ago with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on their
house label using live concert tapes. That recording was well-received here
at MusicWeb (review), although I was less impressed with it myself – but more on that as this
review progresses.
Additionally, about a year prior to this release, Jurowski and this same
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin issued a Pentatone recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde which was
warmly received by John Quinn,
so all the cards are lined up for this new Alpine Symphony to be
a much-anticipated release.
The LPO recording was issued on standard CD, where the present release is
additionally available in Hi-Res Stereo or Multi-Channel as a download or
in SACD format. For this review, I listened to the multi-channel download
format.
One potential concern worth noting as soon as we see the contents of this
album is that, with Jurowski’s performance of the Alpine Symphony
running just over 48 minutes, the SACD, with a capacity of 80 minutes, is
only about 60% filled. That’s a lot of unused space where they surely could
have found something to make this a more economical choice, perhaps Don Juan or Till Eulenspiegel, for example.
On the positive side, however, Pentatone have proven themselves repeatedly
to be dependable for producing state-of-the-art sound quality, and this
recording is no exception. No matter how loudly or how quietly the
orchestra is playing, the clarity and presence of sound is uniformly
top-notch, with the perspective seeming as if I’m somewhere around the
middle of the front seating section – close enough to have plenty of
clarity for the more densely-scored passages as well as sufficient power
for the complete orchestra to make its full impact when needed, but also
with enough perspective and bloom in the hall’s ambience for the
orchestra’s overall sonority to blend very nicely. Whether or not that
excellent sound quality works in the orchestra’s favor is something we’ll
find out as we continue through this review.
The booklet notes are well-written and informative, including a note from
Jurowski himself explaining his perspective on the Alpine Symphony. The time and thoughtfulness he put into this note will hopefully give the
listener a better understanding of his approach to the piece, and the other
notes on the piece’s historical background will make a good introduction to
the music for first-time listeners as well as possibly giving experienced
listeners some new nuggets to consider.
So then, the performance itself. It begins promisingly enough, with
Jurowski giving the music a not-too-aggressive forward-moving pace. These
mountain climbers are not going to dawdle around, but they are taking a
brief moment to glance at the scenery, or at least capture it on their
smartphone cameras for the next blog entry. Balances are carefully
maintained by Jurowski so that Strauss’ always-present multi-layered
textures deftly weave in and out from each other in a manner that keeps the
listener’s interest quite effectively.
The Alpine Pasture and Thickets/Undergrowth sections sound particularly
well-prepared by Jurowski, with Mahlerian cowbells being prominent enough
to easily hear them, yet not overwhelming the rest of the orchestra too
much. In the fairly busy Thickets/Undergrowth section, I was pleased to
notice a number of orchestral parts that I often do not hear in other Alpine Symphony recordings, coming briefly to the fore long enough
to make their presence known, and then retreating back into the mix to make
room for the next bit of texture to appear. So far, this sounds like a very
well-rehearsed Alpine Symphony indeed.
Then we come to the midpoint and On the Summit. The oboe soloist does an
admirable job of trying to give the impression that we are speechless at
the full revelation of Alpine scenery before us, but it comes across as
trying too hard with some unusual rubato that sounds slightly out of place,
even becoming somewhat quirky toward the end of the solo.
As the full orchestra begin making their entry, the trombones are very
prominent indeed, perhaps overly so, while the rest of the brass section
sounds as if there is still some final balancing needed. Individual notes
seem to stick out from the orchestral chords where, instead, we should be
hearing a unified wall of sound at this point in order to be most
effective.
The following outpouring from the strings with horn counter-melodies is
beautifully expressive indeed, but then, sadly, things begin going downhill
(pun not intended) for the rest of the piece.
The brass section has several moments in the latter part of On the Summit
and continuing on through the Vision section where it sounds as if some of
them are getting very tired in their lips, with upper trumpets seeming to
just barely maintain control of their notes on more than one occasion, and
there is an audible cracked note in the horns at 0:48 in the Vision
section. At the end of Vision, where the Night section’s opening chorale
now returns at full fortissimo power with the organ thrown in for good
measure, the brass section seems to be getting somewhat out-powered by the
string section, of all things.
At moments like this, it would almost be to the orchestra’s advantage not
to have such high-quality sound from Pentatone, because in this instance,
it’s exposing and laying bare every flaw in the performance.
Some people would consider such blemishes to be only a minor concern and
wave them off “so long as the conductor has the proper understanding of
what the music should do”, but to me, that’s like looking at the Mona Lisa
through a glass case with large cracks in it.
The Elegy is very nicely done, but then Jurowski suddenly and inexplicably
presses down hard on the accelerator near the end of the Calm Before the
Storm section, which pretty much destroys the “calm”. During the
thunderstorm, the brass section continues to be a liability, as the whole
orchestral palette seems disappointingly under-powered. This is only a mild
thunder shower, not even meriting a government weather advisory.
After the storm(?) is over and we reach the Sunset section, Jurowski now
remains consistent with his London Philharmonic recording – unfortunately.
This is truly one of the fastest and most callous Alpine Symphony
Sunsets that I have ever heard. The violins have numerous
triple-semi-quaver (“fast”) melodic figures through this section that still
need to sound “melodic”, because, well, they are the melody here, for
goodness’ sake.
We have just survived a thunderstorm, er um, shower, and now we are
witnessing a beautiful Alpine sunset, so we need to have an appropriately
rapturous outpouring of emotion from the melody, which is in the violins in
this case. But the tempo adopted by Jurowski has this section going so fast
that it’s all the violins can do to just play the notes without falling
behind, let alone take the time to do any appropriate shaping of the
melodic line.
It seems to me that a world-class composer like Richard Strauss can be
counted on to know what he is about when writing melodic figures for
various sections of the orchestra, so if they sound too rushed, as in this
case, then it should be a clue to the conductor that, “Hey, you’re going
too fast!” But unfortunately, Jurowski tenaciously keeps his interpretive
approach from the LPO concerts and zooms right through it just as before.
In the “Quiet Settles” section (sometimes called “Epilogue” on other
recordings), the trumpets still sound as if they are clinging on by their
fingernails, with some note changes audibly not being properly controlled,
and there are also some tuning problems in the woodwinds that are so
obvious and painful that they made me cringe while listening. The second
half of the “Quiet Settles” section seems to be going better, but then at
3:35 we have an obvious cracked note in the horn section. The proverbial
glass case in front of the Mona Lisa is now becoming shattered to the point
of obscuring the painting itself.
Jurowski clearly has some good ideas about how the Alpine Symphony
should be played (aside from his tempi in “Calm Before the Storm” and
“Sunset”), but in this case, the orchestra’s performance is so substandard
for what should be an international-level organization, that this recording
is simply not competitive. This is especially disheartening after the
excellent Mahler Das Lied von der Erde they released only a year
prior. I wanted this recording to be just as much of a triumph as the
Mahler was, but sadly, it’s not even close.
As a point of comparison, I also listened to other Alpine Symphony
recordings from Frank Shipway with Brazil’s São Paulo Symphony Orchestra on
a BIS SACD (BIS-SACD-1950,
review), as well as another Pentatone SACD of Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducting
the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Pentatone PTC 5186628,
review).
São Paulo turns in a performance that makes me think they might have been
playing the Alpine Symphony for the first time in their lives –
and not because there are any problems with it. On the contrary, the
unbridled excitement they project throughout every note of the whole piece
is very infectious to the listener. It’s rare to hear a performance where
the orchestra is so enthusiastic while also being so absolutely and solidly
secure in their delivery of an international-level performance. With BIS
Records’ always-dependable state-of-the-art sound quality, as well as the
addition of the Die Frau Ohne Schatten Symphonic Fantasy, this
disk is not only better value for the money, but a significantly better
performance as well.
My personal favorite Alpine Symphony of all time, however, out of
a library of over fifteen different versions in my collection (including
the often-venerated Karajan-Berlin recording) is with Andrés Orozco-Estrada
conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Frankfurt orchestra
has a solid, consistently muscular sound throughout the recording, where
the brass and bass instruments are more than up to the task of underpinning
this huge piece with the enormous sonic foundation it needs, and the sound
quality of the individual players is never anything short of magnificently
beautiful. The excitement of the São Paulo recording is here as well, but
with a greater degree of tonal refinement and slightly-better-managed
balances.
Orozco-Estrada’s recording has considerably more impact than the Jurowski,
and some might argue that it has to do with the engineering, but
considering the wobbliness of much of the brass playing in the Jurowski, I
tend to think the largest share of the difference has to go to Frankfurt
simply being a better orchestra, at least in this instance.
Ralph Moore’s review
of the Orozco-Estrada recording suggested it was marred by a sense of too
much restraint and carefulness, with some of the slower tempi
threatening to fall into ponderousness. I find, however, upon close
listening on a surround sound system, that Orozco-Estrada is not being
“careful” or “ponderous” at all. Rather, he is allowing the Frankfurt
orchestra to take the time to shape the melodic lines in ways that bring
them to expressive life such as I have never experienced on any other
recording of this piece before, and that includes recordings from such
luminaries as Haitink, the aforementioned Karajan, Janowski, Previn,
Thielemann, Blomstedt, Neeme Järvi, Solti, and Barenboim.
In the more demanding passages such as “On the Summit” or the Thunderstorm,
Orozco-Estrada turns the Frankfurt orchestra loose to unleash their full
power, and mightily impressive it is, even while remaining perfectly
balanced the whole time. All the important parts come to the fore at the
proper time, even through the tumult, but it is all maintained within a
framework of well-rounded and beautifully refined tone quality that is
surely the hallmark of a world-class Richard Strauss orchestra.
So I would personally recommend the Orozco-Estrada Frankfurt recording,
although the Shipway-São Paulo is also highly competitive, especially with
the additional piece on that disk’s program.
Sadly, however, the Jurowski recording with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester
Berlin is simply not competitive, especially on today’s market with so many
clearly better recordings to choose from.
David Phipps