Donald Francis Tovey
thought it was the greatest symphony
since Beethoven; OK, he was writing
in the first half of the 20th
century, but there haven’t been that
many symphonies to challenge that claim
in the intervening years. How strange,
then, that Dvořák’s
7th Symphony has attracted
more expressive accretions than almost
any other work you can name – I mean
those little shifts of tempo or dynamic
that conductors almost unconsciously
endorse, and which orchestral musicians
reproduce dutifully unless specifically
asked to do otherwise.
I mention that because
this recording is a particularly frustrating
case in point. Frustrating because Eliahu
Inbal has at his disposal a great orchestra
– the Philharmonia at the top of its
form – and an excellent recording. Yet
his interpretation continually irritates
with its fidgety changes of tempo and
dynamic. For example, why the sudden
headlong charge at the beginning of
the first movement’s coda? The composer
asks for, carefully and quite specifically,
poco a poco acceleranda (accelerating
little by little) at the very height
of the climax, which, if observed, is
thrilling and unmistakably right.
Compare the brisk speed
that Inbal sets at the beginning of
the finale – bracing and business-like
– with the beginning of the development
(track 4 around 3:40). This is no mere
holding back, but a fundamental shift
in the underlying tempo of the movement.
There are many, too many, examples of
this sort of musical indiscipline, added
to which Inbal ‘touches up’ the orchestration
in the coda of the finale at the molto
maestoso
by adding the horns to the violins and
woodwind. This is often done, but to
my knowledge entirely without the composer’s
knowledge or sanction. Dvořák,
simple soul that he may have been, wasn’t
a bad orchestrator, so may I please
make a suggestion to conductors who
might be minded to incorporate this
particular piece of unnecessarily vulgar
excess - don’t. Please.
Zehetmair’s reading
of the lovely Romance for violin and
orchestra is a fine one, poised and
expressive, and the disc is completed
by an appropriately rumbustious, if
less than subtle, performance of the
Carnival Overture.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
Thomas Zehetmair (violin)