Review by jmvilleneuve August 22, 2007 (7 of 9 found this review helpful)
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A common occurrence is to purchase a recording for a main piece, but after listening to it you end up loving some « filler » music much more than the music that made you buy it in the first place. This is what happened to me here, I bought this recording for the Stravinsky which if find great sonically but missing a childish/magical ingredient. But I was delighted by the Rachmaninoff. I always found the symphonic dances spectacular but badly constructed and lacking depth. This version was a revelation for me, the energy and vision of the conductor gave this music a unity of purpose that captivated me from beginning to end.
This recording is live so this excuses certain things but I want to discuss the only weak point of this SACD. The sound take is obviously the result of multi-miking and the sound engineer(s) went overboard with it. At many spots in this recording there is not a realistic image of a full symphonic orchestra, more like a “zoom” on specific instruments, and sometimes that perspective change so quickly that the ear gets confused.
This is compensated (maybe the good aspect of multi-miking) by an hyper-clarity of all instruments that are each vividly captured. The image is solid, the dynamic stellar and there is good balance of all frequencies (e.g. thrilling mid-bass, stellar highs, etc.) There is a good feeling of the acoustic of the concert hall from the softest solos to the full orchestral tuttis.
I rate the overall music on this SACD at 4 out of 5, but I give the interpretation of the Symphonic Dances 5 out of 5. There are many difficult transitions in this music but Mariss Jansons manages all of them with brio. The first movement (as the third) has a general form of fast-slow-fast. At the end of the slow section (from 7:30 to 8:30) the conductor leads a gorgeous transition out of the slow section that seems nearly magical. After repeated listening of this single passage I think the secret is for the conductor not to accelerate too quickly and as the orchestration becomes richer there is a sense of build-up without needing to accelerate too quickly. So by the time we reach the re-exposition of the main theme we did not loose contact with the music.
For a more complete review and much more on my web site, check
http://www.geocities.com/jmserre/ENRachDances.html
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