Pyotr Il’yich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Piano
Concerto No 2 in G, Op 44 [45:25]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Symphony No 9 in E flat, Op
70 [28:06]
Andreas Boyde (piano)
Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra/Johannes Fritzsch
rec. live, 13-14 January, 1997, Konzerthaus Freiburg, Germany
ATHENE ATHCD16 [73:31]
This disc preserves in the Athene label’s “Outstanding Concert Performance
Series” a live program presented by the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra on
13 and 14 January, 1997. The back cover finds the concerto soloist, pianist
Andreas Boyde, earning a much bigger, bolder credit than either orchestra
or conductor (Johannes Fritzsch). A listen to the album reveals why: Boyde’s
pianism is very much worthy of preservation on disc, the playing of the Freiburg
Philharmonic less so.
Boyde and Fritzsch opt for a totally uncut of edition Tchaikovsky’s Piano
Concerto No 2, and the performance is a great pleasure. Boyde sometimes missteps
in his handling of the concerto’s ferocious runs, but no more so than Jerome
Lowenthal did in his recently re-issued studio recordings, and at any rate
Boyde’s playing is consistently enjoyable: he executes the gigantic first
movement cadenza with flair, plays the second subject with touching subtlety,
and makes an effective, low-key partner in the slow movement, with its extensive
solos for violin and cello.
The lack of cuts is surely an attraction here: the slow movement, restored
to its original length, has been recorded to my knowledge only by Lowenthal
and Stephen Hough, in his new Hyperion traversal of all three concertos. Konstantin
Scherbakov’s excellent Naxos reading removes about thirty seconds of material
for what has traditionally been considered a more concise ending; older interpreters
like Emil Gilels excise half the movement, thus gutting one of Tchaikovsky’s
most beautiful creations! Preferences for recordings of this concerto; Scherbakov’s
account is fiery and explosive, with keyboard-rattling virtuosity, while Boyde
is polished, laid-back, but never lazy. I have yet to hear the Hough account,
but it sounds even faster and more furious than Scherbakov’s.
The Shostakovich Ninth Symphony finds Johannes Fritzsch and his orchestra
on their own, and trouble sets in rapidly. Fritzsch’s one eccentricity is
a fondness for slow tempos in the opening bars of individual movements; for
two seconds, the opening of the Ninth - with steely, unpleasant violins -
warns of a dull, interminable reading before an accelerando brings us up to
pace. The same trick is used in the scherzo, though sadly not in finale, the
one movement where it works well, as Vasily Petrenko’s recent recording from
Liverpool proved.
The main problem with this reading, though, is the Freiburg Philharmonic.
Intonation is dodgy, solos are botched in every movement, and the ensemble
is not always playing in unison. The violins can’t keep together in the opening
allegro (1:20), and the violin solo in that movement is cringe-worthy (4:24),
the brass are out of sync almost permanently in the fourth movement, and the
trumpeter lets out a hair-raising yowl at 1:10 in the scherzo. In the finale,
the oboist’s solo begins promisingly but ends in screeches, and the violins
misplay their way into more unintentional dissonances. Only the principal
trombonist (assertive) and bassoonist (extremely cool under pressure) emerge
with pride intact.
For live performances, the sound quality is not bad, although coughing pock-marks
the Shostakovich slow movements; the sound certainly is clear enough to make
the Freiburg Philharmonic’s ample intonation issues evident. A full minute
of applause follows each work, and the back cover amusingly gives the copyright
date as 2020. (It also, incredibly, misspells “Freiburg.”) I do like the program,
with its interesting contrast between romantic splendor and neo-classical
sarcasm, and were it better-executed this would be an excellent disc. But
the Freiburg Philharmonic poses too great a challenge to the listener. Every
time I really started to smile and feel drawn into the music, a solo trumpet
or violin would produce such a jarring discord as to make me jump. A pity,
really. I’m sure those involved in this release meant well, but some concerts
deserve preservation for posterity, and some concerts do not. This one did
not.
Brian Reinhart
see also reviews by David
Wright and Rob Barnett (two reviews: first,
second)
Andreas Boyde is a strong pianist, but this concert did not deserve CD release.