I assume Telarc have reissued these two recordings from around 24 years
ago as a means of showing off SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc)
sound. At the time of the recording sessions, the quality of
detail captured could not be fully reproduced on conventional
CD. You still need an SACD player to get the benefit but it
is a fine recording that will be heard to good effect on a CD
player.
It follows that the chosen pieces here are in the orchestral showpiece
category. If you want a work to be given a dazzling, show-off
rendering then I can think of few better partnerships than Lorin
Maazel and The Cleveland Orchestra. Most showpieces that are
played as such are of overture length and combine colourful
orchestration and memorable tunes with an impression of technical
difficulty that allows the orchestra to impress. Glinka’s popular
Ruslan and Ludmilla is a good example. If used as a showpiece
then the Symphonie Fantastique is unusual in that it
is a full length work. But used as such it is. I have noticed
that when orchestras hit the road on tour, particularly abroad
and seeking to impress, then the music of Berlioz’s extraordinary
work is a common item of luggage. The trouble with this is that
playing the piece to the gallery, can be at the expense of the
integrity and meaning of a work that is an intimate expression
of extreme feelings in the context of a narrative that thrusts
increasingly forward into the realms of tortured fantasy.
Lorin
Maazel has many excellent qualities as a conductor but he is
not famed for delving too far beneath the surface of a score.
It could be argued that the Symphonie Fantastique is
not a Mahler symphony and that there are not hidden spiritual
depths to be plumbed. Nevertheless, there is interpretation
to be done and for it to be done successfully it means taking
a view of the score that derives from an understanding of Berlioz
and the emotional turmoil that he is seeking to express. Maazel
is more concerned with extracting a brilliant and disciplined
sound from the orchestra. In doing so he can fail Berlioz’s
intentions.
I
will take a couple of examples. The main tune (idée fixe)
represents Berlioz’s love object, the unattainable Harriet
Smithson. At its first appearance it is a long, strangely asymmetrical
melody that nevertheless has a kind of fluidity that combines
beauty and passion. Underneath it, however, is an accompaniment
of stabbing, nervous, irregularly placed chords suggesting the
underlying agitation that often goes with such love yearnings.
The tension of the contradiction needs to be brought out here
if the music’s meaning is to be realised. Maazel plays the tune
fast and immaculately but fails, in my opinion to realise its
true nature, and at the same time, plays down the accompaniment
thus losing the tension of the double mood. Shortly after the
start of the last movement, the Witch’s Sabbath, the
same tune appears almost unrecognisably, in a crazy mocking
dance played by high clarinet with wild interpolations from
the orchestra. There is something unhinged about this music
and although Maazel and the Clevelanders play it with suitable
virtuosity, the essential manic quality that the great Berlioz
conductors achieve is simply not there. That quality is present
in Igor Markevitch’s Orchestre Lamoureux DG recording of the
same passage even though he takes it slower. Made over forty
years ago it still sounds good. Among other Berlioz sympathisers
that can be relied upon are Charles Dutoit, Colin Davis and
Charles Munch.
So
it’s superb playing in SACD sound (the blazing brass in the
March to the Scaffold – taken very fast - particularly
impresses) versus other versions that get nearer the Berlioz
spirit. Over to you.
The
Nutcracker Suite, as you might expect, fares a lot better,
with brilliant, dancing playing.
Whatever
may be said about Maazel’s interpretative mannerisms, he certainly
gets orchestras to execute them perfectly. After witnessing
Maazel conduct in London not long ago, a friend with me who
was not a musician said afterwards, “I got the impression that
if I were an orchestral player being conducted by Maazel, I’d
know exactly what I was supposed to do”.
John Leeman
Cleveland
[69:27]
