Description
SKU/Barcode: 095115123423
How bad can it be? After all, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia are two of the great English orchestras. The LSO is a well-crafted instrument with a virtuoso technique, a buoyant sense of tempo, and crisp, clean colors. The Philharmonia is a finely polished instrument with a warm sonority, a wonderfully blended sound, and deep-grained beauty of tone. Between them, the LSO and the Philharmonia have been carrying deadbeat conductors for almost a century so how bad could their recordings with Neeme J rvi of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 3 and Symphonic Dances be? Not all that bad, really, but not all that good either: the LSO and the Philharmonia do their part, playing with power, passion, and precision, and J rvi does, well, if not his part, at least as much as he has in him to do. Now, this might not be much -- J rvi can learn a score by holding it to his forehead but his performances rarely go deeper than the forehead -- but at least in these 1987 and 1991 performances, J rvi is fairly circumspect about imposing his will on the music, that is to say, J rvi steps back and lets the LSO and the Philharmonia play the music. But while that's to the good, J rvi's interpretations, except for a few quirks and eccentricities that constitute his style, are essentially empty and devoid of deeper musical meaning. Compared with the great performances of the past -- the Olympian Ormandy, the Dionysic Stokowski, and of course the Apollonian Rachmaninov -- J rvi's performances are well-played but void of meaning. Chandos' digital sound is big, rich, and warm.
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