The Sleeping Beauty is frequently cut, but according to the
excellent sleeve-notes, this recording is absolutely complete.
It includes, for example, the aristocratic dances in the 1st
Tableau of Act 2 and the dance of the Sapphire Fairy, the Pas
Berrichon and the Sarabande in Act 3. Stravinsky declared The
Sleeping Beauty to be Tchaikovsky's chef d'oeuvre and he was
not far wrong, for it demonstrates many of the composer's best
musical characteristics: it is tuneful, dramatic, skilfully
orchestrated and never dull. The composer himself was 'charmed
and delighted beyond all description' by the scenario. 'It suits
me perfectly and I ask for nothing more than to set it to music.'
When, after just a few weeks, he had finished the composition,
he wrote to his patron, Nadezhda von Meck: 'I think, my dear
friend, that the music of this ballet will comprise one of my
best works'. He did have trouble with the scoring but that was
because he wished to use new instrumental combinations. This
splendid recording makes it obvious that he, for example, replaces
the harp with the piano as an obbligato instrument in the final
act. It is sad that his first audience was unimpressed, the
Tsar apparently remarked that it was 'very nice' and then haughtily
dismissed the composer from his presence! We can relax because
this is far more than very nice - it is a superb rendering.
Neeme Järvi seems never to put a foot wrong and the Bergen
orchestra impresses as much, conducted by him, as it does under
its principal conductor Andrew Litton in his many recordings
for BIS. The producers have pulled out all the stops and engaged
no less a violinist than James Ehnes to play the important violin
solos, a strikingly indulgent decision which pays dividends
because Ehnes' outstanding technique makes these sections truly
memorable. The Grieghallen is obviously a lovely venue because
the 5.0 MCH recording has a high degree of reality, not a description
I often feel able to use.
Tchaikovsky's score is unusually coherent for a ballet. Of
the huge number of compositions to which choreographers regularly
work, Tchaikovsky's belong, along with those of Prokofiev and
Stravinsky, in the group of musically important creations which
succeed in the concert hall as much as in the theatre. For many
years my personal reaction to The Sleeping Beauty was somewhat
muted. I have a performance by the LSO and André Previn
recorded by EMI in 1974 and I have never enjoyed it as much
as Swan Lake or The Nutcracker. Spending time with this new
Chandos set has quite revised my opinion. The sense of dramatic
structure and urgent forward motion is captivating. One is even
propelled through the rather anti-climactic final act, where
there is really no significant action. On stage Act 3 is really
just 47 minutes of balletic bravura, properly a Divertissement,
but Järvi and the Bergen band continue to treat the score
seriously. As Tchaikovsky himself believed, he composed some
of his very best music for this ballet, worthy to stand with
the Fantasy Overture - Romeo and Juliet, Manfred and the Fifth
Symphony. David Nice's sleeve-notes are right to emphasise the
importance of the complete score as a significant dramatic masterpiece.
Dave Billinge
Nick Barnard has also listened to this disc with
mixed feelings:
Perhaps I am just not attuned to Neeme Järvi’s objective approach
to Tchaikovsky these days. Having been far less than engaged
by his Symphony cycle in Gothenburg on BIS I had high hopes
for this new recording of The Sleeping Beauty in Bergen.
After all, his discs of Halvorsen and Svendsen with the same
artistic and creative team have shown him to be back to his
masterly best. Likewise, the Bergen Philharmonic are proving
to be one of the most recorded and consistently fine of the
Scandinavian orchestras currently. Discs for BIS – stunning
Grieg and Stravinsky and Gershwin, Hyperion – very fine Messiaen
and the aforementioned Chandos discs show this to be a top class
ensemble. Add the exceptional James Ehnes – luxury casting bringing
him in for the three virtuosic violin solos – and I fully expected
this to be all but a shoe-in for a favourite version of a much
loved work. Instead, time and again I found myself impressed
by the sheer quality of the playing and hugely disappointed
by the interpretation.
A few preliminaries before trying to get to grips with quite
why this set has left me so cold. The Sleeping Beauty
is a big work. David Nice’s characteristically fine liner-note,
makes the point that rarely is the entire score presented theatrically.
This is because in performance it lasts over three exhausting
hours for both dancers and musicians and the technical demands
onstage and in the pit are equally immense. If completeness
on the stage is hard to achieve it seems much more of a loss
to cut any of Tchaikovsky’s miraculous score in the recording
studio. In turn this presents recording companies with a dilemma
– for the vast majority of performances a complete version goes
over the 160 minute limit of a pair of compact discs but using
a third seems profligate. The trade-off often chosen is judicious
cutting of the score. Hence the excellent Previn/LSO and also
the impressive Lanchbery/Philharmonia sets both on EMI and the
famous Dorati/Concertgebouw Phillips sets are squeezed onto
a bargain pair of discs with certain movements cut. Dorati’s
magnificent version was originally released in a ‘full’ 3 disc
version. Bonynge with the National PO on Decca get around this
by putting the three great Tchaikovsky ballets into a 6-disc
box with Sleeping Beauty using up the ‘spare’ room
on the second disc of The Nutcracker. Svetlanov in
his characteristically no-holds-barred set with his beloved
USSR SO is on three discs. Which leaves, aside from this new
set, only one other I know that manages to accommodate the entire
score uncut onto a pair of discs – Pletnev with the Russian
National Orchestra on DG. I must admit my reaction to that much-praised
set is not as wonder-filled as some; but at its best it is very
fine. Not entirely unlinked to a question of pace is that of
conceptual approach. There are two basic approaches to this
score – the symphonic and the balletic. The former emphasises
the extraordinary musical structure Tchaikovsky imposed on the
work with use of linking themes and keys. Quite often this favours
a more thrustingly dynamic, fluid approach to tempo which would
not help dancers in the theatre. The balletic line often produces
more measured results which can be seen as underplaying the
extremes of Tchaikovsky’s emotional writing. Not surprisingly,
John Lanchbery of the conductors mentioned above is a past-master
of the latter style but he proves beyond doubt that this score
can be both balletic and exciting. In this he is helped by a
full-throated Philharmonia and an exciting but slightly harsh
early digital recording. If only he had recorded the complete
score it would be a very serious contender.
I do not intend to go through the score with a stopwatch – with
a work of such length and so many movements any performance
will be a patchwork of ‘slower-than’ and ‘faster-than’ sequences.
Järvi earned his spurs with a reputation for full-blooded interpretations
so it would be surprising if more of the same were not present
here. Indeed, many of the faster character dances and Scenes
benefit from just such an approach. For me where he fails without
exception is by not allowing the slower music any repose. Tchaikovsky’s
miraculous melodic gift needs space into which it can expand.
Take the very opening – a thrilling call to arms as exciting
as any in the entire Classical Ballet repertoire – Järvi is
everything you could wish but by the Andantino, less
than a minute in, where is the pained rapture, the gentle ecstasy
of yet another of Tchaikovsky’s great melodies? Järvi’s tempo
is prosaic, the phrasing mundane. It is that juxtaposition of
the energetic to the ecstatic that time and again in this score
ratchets the emotional temperature ever higher. It must be reiterated
that the Bergen players are fully able to deal with every challenge
Järvi and Tchaikovsky throw at them. Indeed the clarity and
precision of the wind and string playing is a delight. Listen
to the closing Finale and Apotheosis – really awkward
passage-work for the strings dispatched with ease and accuracy.
Yet for all the precision I feel the playing lacks coherent
direction; too often musical phrases are allowed to follow a
basic contour without having a real character imposed on them.
The great Rose Adagio is a major disappointment – the
main section is marked Adagio maestoso – to my mind,
and it would seem just about all of the other interpreters mentioned
above, this implies a pulse of the six quaver/eighth notes per
bar. This puts huge technical demands on both players and dancers
to sustain this glorious music. Järvi conducts in an almost
lilting 2-feel, much easier to perform for sure but the rapture
is wholly absent. Another curio in this movement. The harp solos
on this recording are played by Johannes Wik. They are superbly
played and very well recorded … but he doesn’t always play what
I have in my score. I have the 2 volume Moscow State Publishers
edition of this score which all of the other conductors follow
too it seems. Svetlanov’s harpist also uses a different cadenza
before the Rose Adagio. There might well be some performing
tradition or precedence that Wik is following but in the context
here [and also before No.15 Pas d’Action in Act II]
I find it out of place to perform something that Tchaikovsky
did not write – and if you must depart from the text it would
be good to know why. Especially since Wik’s cadenza is stylistically
quite different from the music surrounding it – there is a feel
of a Debussian arabesque rather than a Tchaikovsky fairy-tale.
The deeper into the score we go and to my ear a general pattern
emerges. Järvi seems more at ease in the dramatic scene-setting
sequences; the casting of the spell and the creation of the
thorn forest and also the numerous dances especially in the
closing Act – especially the fairy and Pantomime character dances.
There’s a wonderfully swaggering Polacca in Act III
[track 11 CD 2] that embodies Järvi at his flashing-eyed best.
Conversely, many of the short bonne-bouche variations and dances
fail to smile or charm. For example; Canari qui chante
[Var.IV of the Act 1 Pas de Six –CD1 track 9] is sped
through as a piccolo exercise with all of the subtlety of the
orchestration lost.
As such, that is not a problem since with so many short sections
– there are 65 tracks across the two CDs - there will always
be moments that appeal more than others. However the work’s
beating heart lies in the great adagios and here Järvi seems
unwilling to embrace their emotional potential to the maximum.
Take the Pas de Deux [track 29 CD 2] – one cannot fault
the playing or engineering but where is the cathartic release
when the melody returns sung by the unison violins around the
three minute mark? In isolation, because this is well achieved
technically it all sounds perfectly good. When compared to any
of the above versions it is lacking – even Dorati who alone
among the versions mentioned above is significantly quicker
than here. There is another facet of Tchaikovsky’s compositional
style which can be judged a strength or weakness depending upon
your point of view. In all his works, but especially the ballets,
there are extended passages of musical/sequential “filling”.
This is where a simple motif or chord sequence is often elaborated
by repetition and movement through keys. In the stage works
this was often due to the practical necessity of getting a lot
of people on or off stage or changing a scene. My belief is
that part of Tchaikovsky’s genius was to take such potentially
unappealing sequences and generate real drama from the slow-burn
build-up of musical tension until the point of tumultuous arrival.
In the right hands these sequences of sequences are deliciously
anticipatory – in others its just padding. To often this performance
smacks of the latter.
A mention here for the two featured soloists – violinist James
Ehnes and cellist Robert DeMaine. Ehnes is every bit as fine
as one would expect of one of the great violinists of the age.
Indeed, if I were to suggest a reason to hear this version it
would be to hear Ehnes’ contribution – but given that this amounts
to less than ten minutes time “on-stage” in a 155 minute work
that would represent a very specialist purchase. Robert DeMaine
plays his solo – the Act II Pas d’Action previously
mentioned – very well too and both soloists benefit from a nicely
natural recorded perspective. Which brings me back to the conclusion
that Järvi has chosen to move away from the heart-on-sleeve
style of some years back which in many ways made his reputation
as a conductor. He seems now to favour a fleet dry-eyed approach.
A conductor of his skill and experience chooses with extraordinary
care exactly how his interpretations are crafted. If this sounds
fleet [not just fast] and emotionally under-engaged then that
must be how he now feels the score works best. Perhaps I am
too used to a more emotional interpretation but if that is the
case it is because all of the other versions I know and love
of this masterly score favour that approach too.
The Chandos recording is one of their hybrid Super Audio CDs
recorded in 24 bit 5.0 channel surround sound. I listened in
the standard format and fine though it is my suspicion is that
it would sound better in the surround format. For all its stated
compatibility my suspicion is that the engineering is optimised
for the surround format and that in standard stereo it lacks
the last degree of bite and detail such discs used to have in
two-channel only days. That being said it copes extremely well
with the complexities of Tchaikovsky’s fullest score. The orchestral
piano writing and the addition of cornets as well as trumpets
to an already full romantic orchestra causes the Chandos production
team no headaches at all. Listen to how comfortably the closing
Apotheosis expands from a rather muted opening to a rafter-shaking
conclusion – again impressive until direct musical comparisons
are made – Previn’s LSO swaggeringly opulent here to far greater
effect. If I miss anything at all it is the sense that the players
really are giving their all at one or two key climaxes in the
work. For sure too many fffs rather pall after a while
but conversely any sense of something left in the tank emotionally
or dynamically in music like this is equally wrong – Tchaikovsky
is nothing if not all passion spent.
The set is neatly presented in a slim double case enclosed in
a cardboard sleeve with the slightly fatter than usual liner
booklet accommodated by the sleeve. As mentioned the liner benefits
greatly from an interesting note and detailed movement by movement
synopsis from David Nice. The rest of the booklet is in the
standard Chandos format – three languages, biographies and some
artist photographs. Chandos are intending to release all three
of the Tchaikovsky ballets using this group of performers but
I am not sure this current issue adds greatly to our knowledge
and appreciation of this great work – finer and more engaging
versions exist elsewhere.
Nick Barnard
James Ehnes (violin); Robert DeMaine (cello); Johannes Wik (harp)