Tchaikovsky – Orchestral Suites 1-4/Romeo and Juliet/Francesca da Rimini: Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra/Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields/Neville Marriner
Capriccio
Shostakovich – Symphony No 4 in C Minor: Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
BIS
In the 10 years 1877-1887 and between his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky wrote his violin concerto, the orchestral version of the ever-popular 1812 Overture (originally for military band), the second piano concerto, Italian Caprice, serenade for strings and these four orchestral suites. These suites are full of charming melodies, beautifully developed and sensitively orchestrated. The musical invention never flags and the moods and emotions evoked are wholly free of the fatalistic torments and passions found in abundance in the later symphonies.
Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky’s personality shines through in every page of the scores. It is not that this music is emotionally undernourished, but that feelings are always contained. There is none of that riot of abandoned pathos and passion we find in the subsequent work.
Much of the writing in the first three suites reminded me of Grieg. The Fourth Suite is the celebrated Mozartiana, the composer’s tribute to Mozart, whom he admired all his life. The movements are tasteful romantic orchestrations of the Gigue K574, Minuet K355, Ave Verum K618 and the variations in a theme by Gluck K455.
This music admirably suites Neville Marriner, who delivers polished, elegantly phrased performances of music that will never fail to amuse and entertain.
The same could never be said of Francesca da Rimini, a load of unmatched bombastic hokum that needs more virtuoso swagger than it gets here. Romeo and Juliet is delivered with a fine sense of romance, but finally lacks that essential searing tragic inevitability to lift it out of a sense of routine. These are by no means new recordings, but sound fine. All in all, this is a bargain box of delights.
Thomas Beecham once said the English don’t like music much, but they love the sound it makes. I was reminded of this rich remark listening to this stunning new recording of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony from the 115-strong Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under Mark Wigglesworth. After the triumph of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in 1935, Shostakovich was suddenly plunged into disgrace after being denounced by Stalin in Pravda for writing “muddle not music” and declared an enemy of the state. During the age of socialist realism, artists had to toe the line and praise the grand achievement of Uncle Joe’s utopia in the most grandiose and galumphing terms.
Apparently, Shostakovich decided to overdo his praise and gratitude for living in Stalin’s Russia and this Fourth symphony in its hugeness, grandiloquence and massively rich brazen sonority is an ironic response to the requirements of the time. The symphony does bang on a bit, but put all the specious aesthetic pleading aside and simply relish the energetic professionalism of this performance and the resounding SACD stereo recording. And expect a visit from the Noise Abatement Society.
Robert Giddings
