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In Reply to: RE: There's a THIRD Telarc? posted by mbnx01 on July 14, 2016 at 18:49:58
Yep.
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..I said in my earlier post on this that i would give it a spin today.
For me one of its greatest faults will be its greatest benefit for others. It is an unremitting hifi spectacular. Perhaps the Decca engineers had their Phase 4 hats on, at least spiritualy. As the performance in general lacks an organic sense of wholeness this tends to make it just a sequence of sonic events.
IMO it lacks any real sense of mystery and wonder and instead of traversing the huge distances of space to end our journey in the dark, cold and distant reaches of our solar system I found myself trapped in L'Eglise de Saint-Eustache with an Orchestra and a (seemingly rather small) female chorus.
My own big touchstone for The Planets is how well the women's chorus can stay in tune as they fade away through the end of Neptune, and in this respect, the women of The Sixteen (yes - I know they're kind of a HIP group!) are very accomplished on an unlikely recording of this repertoire which I still find extremely impressive overall:
So far, the hi-rez versions of this work I've heard (Andrew Davis on Chandos, etc.) aren't quite as compelling for me as interpretations. As with many Collins Classics titles, the microphones on this Svetlanov album are a bit further away than usual. I see that Svetlanov also has an in-concert recording of this work with the Swedish RSO and Choir - haven't heard it. I'd say that overall, Svetlanov's tempos are a bit on the slower side. I like other CD-rez versions too, including the Karajan/VPO (a much better example of Decca engineering than the Dutoit IMHO).
In that I admire Dutoit as a conductor. I have now seen him with the SFS some 8 times, leading a wide variety of works (including the Planets, but also works like Shostakovich's 10 symphony, the Strauss Don Quixote, Berlioz Harold in Italy and the Damnation of Faust) and except for once when I felt the orchestra let him down badly (very poor Firebird Suite), that all of the concerts have been superb. I look forward to his annual visits to San Francisco.
My wife just got back from England and, during our catching up on what happened during the time she was away, I casually mentioned that I'd posted here about her admiration for Dutoit. She then became very annoyed and told me in no uncertain terms that she is NOT an admirer of Dutoit! In fact, the last time she saw Dutoit was when James Ehnes was playing with the SF Symphony (the Lalo, I think) and Dutoit conducted the Enigma Variaions on the same concert. "Flat and dull" was her description of that performance. I must have confused her admiration for Ehnes with an admiration for Dutoit! ;-)
Didn't he conduct a Symphonie Fantastique here a few years ago?
We try to see him every year.
I don't know if you or PAR saw my comment about the Dutoit Planets, but obviously, PAR and I are in agreement. Sometimes I hesitate to say anything negative about the "sonic spectaculars" that pretty much rule the roost here and in similar audiophile forums. And sonic spectacle is an important element of the Planets and many other orchestral standards often discussed here.
But PAR puts his finger right on the issue with Dutoit -- the lack of mystery.
And you too are exactly right, imo -- I also listen for how the women's chorus fades away at the end of Neptune. In fact, for me the approach to Neptune as a whole is critical for a truly successful Planets. The aura of unfathomable distance and mystery, which imo should always be present on some level earlier in the work, should come to the fore.
Edits: 07/15/16
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