Digital downloading of music is becoming increasingly prevalent, but I
suspect there'll always be at least a small market for this sort of
album. Well-engineered orchestral records, played back through even
mid-level stereo components, offer sensual, aesthetic and emotional
satisfactions that digital files can't — certainly not when
they're heard through earbuds — and that your random YouTube video
can't begin to approach.
Avie, with its select artist roster, judiciously chosen repertoire, and
attentive engineering, ought to be one of the companies best equipped to
offer such material successfully. The results in this instance, however,
earn, at best, a mixed grade.
The
Swan Lake selection begins promisingly. In the opening
Scène, the slightly woolly oboe solo is pleasing. The Act I
Waltz has moments of grace and delicacy, though Petrenko's
choice to omit the 16-bar repeats in the second "B" section —
including the passage with the trumpet solo — leave it sounding slightly
misshapen. Attacks are elusively approximate in a way that renders
tuttis opaque and blunts the music's power. Even the
percussion at the start of the
Mazurka is boomy. You start noticing
that the conductor, who clearly appreciates the music's quiet
moments, lets them go static. His habit of pulling back to unmarked
pianos-and-crescendos comes to seem like a mannerism.
Things immediately improve with the taut, bracing
Introduction to
Sleeping Beauty. The ensuing Lilac Fairy episode again turns inert,
but then the performance recovers. Rhythmic address is altogether more
alert, and attacks more pointed and precise. In the
Pas de quatre,
flutes and clarinets tumble cheerfully in the relaxed
Entrée, while
the scampering woodwinds take the nimble, charming
Variation de la
Princesse Florine in stride. Even the overfamiliar
Waltz, firm
and not too fey, sounds fresh.
There is no "official"
Swan Lake or
Sleeping
Beauty suite: such suites comprise movements assembled at the
discretion of the conductor or the producer. There
is an official
Nutcracker Suite, catalogued as Opus 71a, but this isn't
quite it: Petrenko omits the
Arabian Dance, for no obvious reason —
there was certainly room on the disc. In any event, the playing remains
crisp and clear, save when the horns go mushy at the start of the
Waltz
of the Flowers, and they're better when the theme returns.
Avie provides its customary, unobtrusively good engineering: in
Nutcracker, note the depth with which the soft brass chords of the
March register.
Downloaders, who can pick and choose from among the individual tracks, may
have an advantage over record collectors here, though the album as a whole
is cheaper. Still, all the available digital files are variously
"lossy". I didn't locate any FLAC downloads, for example,
so, if you want the better-quality sound, you'll need to get the
actual CD.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta is a New York-based conductor, coach, and
journalist.
