Am I alone in thinking that most of Mehta’s best recordings
come from the sixties and early seventies, and mainly with this orchestra?
These are marvellous performances, full of life and colour, and sounding
light years away from the rather bland, faceless offerings we have had
from this conductor in recent years. Indeed, though I possess two Nielsen
cycles on disc (from Blomstedt on Decca, and Chung on Bis), this ‘Inextinguishable’
is as good as any you’re likely to encounter.
Take the very opening, where Nielsen’s fiery originality
bursts forth. Mehta unleashes his orchestral forces upon us with real
venom and power, and when the music finally subsides, the beauty of
the Los Angeles woodwind playing (and its important contribution to
Nielsen’s subsequent thematic scheme) becomes apparent. I haven’t heard
the crucial clarinet thirds better phrased (around 1.28), and when the
development takes off (around 3.45), the semi-canonic entries through
the orchestra are beautifully balanced.
The symphony plays without a break, and as the stormy
first movement yields to the gentle pastoral interlude that is the second
movement, the Los Angeles wind again excel themselves. As this fades
and is interrupted by the passionate slow movement, the long, single
arch of melody is sumptuously played by the orchestra’s strings. I particularly
like Mehta’s handling of the mysterious episode at around 4.38, where
weird birdsong cries on the oboes and clarinets again ominously interrupt
proceedings.
The marvellous finale, with its characteristic timpani
battle, is enjoyed by all, and Mehta gauges the ‘homecoming’ of the
coda to perfection, broadening the tempo just enough to give the final
peroration a suitable feeling of triumph over adversity. The recording,
dating from 1974, is full-bodied and detailed.
The unusual coupling is just as effective. Scriabin’s
luxuriously exotic Poem of Ecstasy may seem an odd bedfellow
for the Nielsen, but both works are chronological contemporaries, and
both, in one critic’s words, ‘seek to express the unquenchable vitality
of life and music’. This wonderfully over-the-top, post-Wagnerian symphonic
poem, with its restless yearning and almost atonal chromaticism, was
a party piece for Mehta and this orchestra, and they revel in every
moment of it. Even Mikhail Pletnev’s recent DG account, with his excellent
Russian National Orchestra, is no match for the fervent eroticism of
Mehta, and the recording, though 1967 vintage, is actually better focused
than the Pletnev, which has a slightly muddy bass and some odd microphone
highlighting.
So this re-issue, even with ungenerous playing time,
deserves serious consideration by anyone interested in these two composers.
The notes, by David Hurwitz, are fuller and more intelligent than most,
and with superb sound and budget price tag, it can be enthusiastically
recommended.
Tony Haywood
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Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra/Zubin Mehta