MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
BIS downloads available from eclassical.com

Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13 (1895) [45:46]
Prince Rostislav (1891) [16:48]
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 (1906-7) [67:21]
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 (1935-6) [44:54]
Symphonic Movement in D minor (Youth Symphony) (1891) [14:51]
Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 (1912) [7:20]
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Owain Arwel Hughes
rec. Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, September 2001
BIS-CD-1665/66 [3 CDs: 63:27 + 67:59 + 68:25]

Experience Classicsonline

Apparently, no-one bothered telling Owain Arwel Hughes that Rachmaninov wrote big, lush romantic scores, marked by the sort of broad, arching melodies, juicy harmonies and rich textures that would later be tagged as "movie music". Or, if he was told, he didn't pay attention.

The first thing you're likely to notice is that the music isn't slathered in aural "heavy syrup", as it can be. While the sonority is always grounded in a firm bass, the conductor keeps the texture and tone consistently light, eschewing the melodramatic surges and swells considered obligatory in some quarters. The music's cantabile element is not neglected: the great melodies sing out, but lyrically rather than grandly; the vibrant string sound is clear and tapered. Orchestrally, this is roughly equivalent to painting in fine rather than broad strokes - or, as in some cruder performances, perhaps a trowel.

Such refinement produces unusually transparent sonorities, in which the varicolored winds, and interior voices in general, can register without overplaying. In the first movement of the E minor symphony, little ostinatos and accompaniment figures, usually buried in a wash of rich sound, emerge sufficiently to keep the textures active, without detracting from the main musical line. In the codettas of the exposition - repeated, by the way, which makes for a long movement - and recapitulation, the clear balance is wonderful: the melodic cellos sing out smoothly, without having to fight through the welter of supporting parts above and below. In the A minor symphony, lightly scored passages - in the first-movement recapitulation, for example, and at 4:58 and 8:38 in the finale - are played gently, conjuring a chamber-music intimacy. The resulting expressive palette favors wistfulness over nostalgia, the ache of yearning over the rush of passion, and underlines the brooding aspects of the A minor.

In keeping with his attention to smaller-scaled effects, Hughes opts for a rhythmic impulse more akin to an easy flow than to a hard push. It mostly works - one discovers that greater drive isn't always necessary - but matters occasionally threaten to come to a halt here and there, particularly in the E minor. In the first movement, the lyrical third theme brings a refreshing stillness; but in the recapitulation, nearing the end of a long movement, the effect approaches stasis. The great Adagio, too, is perhaps unduly languid in manner, though there's no denying the limpid beauty of the playing, and the phrases do lead the ear onward.

If I've not been referencing the D minor symphony, it's because it thrives less well than its companions under this treatment. To be sure, it offers its share of expressive, considered details: note the seamless transition from the introduction into the clarinet's anxious first subject. But, had the strings dug into those introductory phrases with more tonal weight, there would have been a more marked musical contrast as well. The comparative lack of momentum in the outer movements doesn't establish the requisite structural guideposts, and they both ramble, despite the sensitive playing of the first movement's little woodwind phrases. The inner movements come off better - the scherzo chugs along pleasantly, if not distinctively, and the Larghetto offers some lovely moments.

The fillers offer the young composer before he's found his "cosmopolitan" voice, working in a Russian-nationalist idiom, exemplified by the tone poem Prince Rostislav. Arwel Hughes, while still keeping the textures lightweight, captures the score's basic dark, brooding quality, leavened by delicate, sparkling woodwind solos that recall the Glazunov ballets.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the single-movement Youth Symphony is Rachmaninov's hommage to Tchaikovsky. This student piece is a virtual rip-off of that composer's Fourth Symphony: blatantly so in the brassy rhythmic gestures of the climaxes, more suggestively in the choice of a triple meter and the use of rising sequences to build tension. Here the conductor infuses the phrasing with thrust and purpose, and this may just be the best performance in the set.

The Vocalise is lovely, as it usually is, and even more gossamer than the López-Cobos (Telarc). Some of the tenutos are uncertainly timed, and the final statement brings one of the set's rare balance lapses, with the sensitive clarinet a bit too reticent against the various string lines.

The engineering is predictably fine, coming up clearly and smoothly, but at first I was disappointed: I'd expected BIS, with its audiophile reputation, to make "bigger"-sounding, more present Rachmaninov recordings. In fact, it's the playing itself, rather than the reproduction, that needed to be "bigger".


Stephen Francis Vasta



 

 

 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.