The conventional suites of music from
Porgy and Bess are
Gershwin’s own
Catfish Row, written when the opera flopped,
and resurrected in 1950, and Robert Russell Bennett’s Symphonic
Suite of 1942. Franck Villard’s arrangement for clarinet and strings
on Naxos is a much longer work than either of these. The advantage
is that it contains much more music; the disadvantage is that
less of that music is really well known. The new version is more
closely linked to the chronology of the opera – full details are
given in the very helpful notes, which are written by the arranger,
Franck Villard.
Gershwin’s orchestrations are hardly sacrosanct – witness the
fact that the band and orchestral versions of
Rhapsody in Blue
come courtesy of Ferde Grofé’s arrangements – so adding a clarinet,
in Franck Villard’s Suite from
Porgy, seems perfectly legitimate.
The ‘smoochy’ sound of the clarinet, mostly taking the part of
the human voice, is well suited to Gershwin’s music. I shall certainly
want to hear this arrangement from time to time.
I’m likely, however, much more often to turn to
Catfish Row
or the Bennett
Symphonic Picture. With the Bennett arrangement
the listener doesn’t have to wait so long for the first big tune:
Summertime is here before you know it, partly because Previn
abridges the music slightly in his performance on EMI.
There is a third version to consider, Gershwin’s own
Catfish
Row, reissued on an earlier American Classics CD which I reviewed
last year. On that disc, a performance by the St Louis Symphony
Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin is coupled with
An American
in Paris and
Lullaby (also Slatkin),
Rhapsody in
Blue (Donohoe and Rattle) and Previn’s
Cuban Overture.
(2066282 – see
review).
Though I stated my preference for the Bennett arrangement – I
managed to get his name in a tangle, referring to him as ‘Richard
Rodney Russell’ – I enjoyed that Slatkin performance very much.
For this work, I think honours must be about even between Slatkin
and Previn. Though the new Naxos recording is attractive and the
performance idiomatic, if a little lightweight beside EMI’s two
contenders, I can’t see it as much more than an interesting curiosity.
There’s just too much music here that sounds fine in the dramatic
context of the opera, but seems too much like makeweight in the
suite; the interest of the listener and, I think, of the performers,
occasionally sags as a result. The
Symphonic Picture may
be less subtle than either
Catfish Row or Villard’s arrangement
but I really like the way that it goes for the jugular and the
large-scale performance and recording which it receives from Previn
and EMI do it full justice.
As befits the Villard arrangement, the Naxos recording is more
intimate, with the clarinet well forward. My last encounter with
Sinfonia Finlandia and Patrick Gallois was on a Naxos recording
of early Haydn symphonies, where I found them very acceptable
but a little lacking in a sense of period style – see
review.
Together they have also recorded Gounod’s symphonies for Naxos:
Brian Burtt recommended their rhythmic snap and clarity of texture
there but, significantly, added that he didn’t think they would
have “a rich enough sound for (say) Debussy.” (8.557463 – see
review.)
His words neatly sum up my reaction to their playing in Gershwin,
where rhythm and clarity are, of course, important, but where
a fuller sound is sometimes required than the Sinfonia offer,
though the perkiness of Michel Lethiec’s playing offers a good
deal of compensation.
The EMI version of the
Piano Concerto with Previn as soloist
and conductor dates from 1971, when it was coupled with
American
in Paris and
Rhapsody in Blue. Reissued, still at full
price in 1986, it was generally thought preferable to his 1985
re-make of all three works for Philips and it still sounds well,
concluding the CD with a bang. Some will continue to prefer Previn
as soloist with Kostelanetz conducting, on an older CBS recording
now coupled with Bernstein conducting
American in Paris
and
Rhapsody in Blue (mid-price Sony 82876787682), but
you won’t go far wrong with the EMI Previn.
As between this idiomatic performance of the complete work and
the excerpt from the second movement alone on Naxos there is no
competition. CBS issued a CD of Gershwin’s music many years ago
which included just one movement from the Previn/Kostelanetz
Piano
Concerto; the excuse then was that early CDs rarely exceeded
an hour’s playing time.
Why on earth Naxos chose to record just part of the work now is
beyond me. I understand Franck Villard’s stated aim to produce
a mini-concerto for clarinet in the excerpt from the
Piano
Concerto, but I’d rather he’d gone the whole hog and adapted
the whole work. As it stands, it’s a pleasant enough discursive
little piece but, shorn of the finale, lacks the punch of the
original.
The same applies to the excerpt from
American in Paris,
though, at least, this offers the whole of the middle section
of the work. Either of these works could have been recorded complete
– to accommodate the Concerto we could easily have been spared
the Three Preludes and the abridged
American in Paris –
which would have been preferable to these skeletons. I thought
that Slatkin’s version of
American yielded slightly to
Bernstein on the Sony recording which I’ve mentioned above, but
it is very enjoyable; it represents my only real reservation about
that CD, and, at least, it contains the whole work.
What we have on Naxos, therefore, is one slightly over-long work,
two truncated works, and some short pieces. Clarinet lovers will
doubtless enjoy the result, especially the bluesy arrangement
and matching interpretation of the excerpt from
American in
Paris. I certainly don’t wish to give the impression that
I disliked it, but either of the EMI American Classics recordings
gives me greater pleasure.
The new EMI reissue is rounded off with Previn’s account, with
Cristina Ortiz as soloist, of the
Second Rhapsody. Don’t
make the mistake of expecting a rehash of its more famous predecessor
and I think you will find it a powerful and impressive work. It
certainly doesn’t deserve its almost complete neglect, especially
when heard in this very good interpretation.
Both EMI recordings still sound very well indeed. The
Cuban
Overture on the earlier reissue and the
Piano Concerto
on the new disc are ADD, but you’d be hard pressed to tell them
apart from the newer DDD sections of each. The Naxos recording,
too, offers credible, slightly leaner sound. The EMI booklet offers
brief notes – just over a side in each of three languages – the
Naxos notes are rather fuller and include an idiomatic English
translation of Villard’s French originals.
Previn’s Philips/Pittsburgh performances are due to be reissued
on Decca’s The Originals label in January, 2010, and his
American
in Paris-Piano Concerto-Rhapsody in Blue coupling remains
available at mid-price on EMI Great Recordings 5668912. My recommendation
would be to go for the two EMI American Classics reissues – each
available for little, if any, more than the Naxos – with the Naxos
clarinet arrangements an attractive proposition for anyone who
would like a longer suite from
Porgy and/or has an attachment
to the clarinet. If my review leads you to suspect that I wanted
to like this version rather more than I actually did, you would
be quite correct. The more I played it, however, the closer I
came to liking it; I certainly don’t wish to damn it with faint
praise. Had it not appeared almost simultaneously with the EMI
Previn reissue, I might well have liked it better.
I haven’t heard Naxos’s other Gershwin recording, with the New
Zealand SO and James Judd offering a Robert Russell Bennett potpourri
of
Gershwin in Hollywood,
American in Paris,
Cuban
Overture and the Russell Symphonic Suite from
Porgy and
Bess, but Dave Billinge liked it and, I imagine, it would
have a wider appeal than their new recording. (8.559107 – see
review).
Brian Wilson
Michel Lethiec (clarinet)
