BR Klassik 900108, £12.99
This superb recording of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony emanates from a live performance given in 2007 at the Vatican’s Aula Paolo VI in honour of, and in the presence of, Pope Benedict XVI.
As usual with Mariss Jansons, the score’s salient detail is immaculately crafted, with individual instrumental components of the texture defined and brought to life in a way that animates the whole symphonic process. Nothing escapes Jansons’s attention, either in terms of apt emphasis on a particular instrument’s role at any given moment or in the care with which he shapes a phrase.
The clarity of line and the judicious balance of timbres are equal hallmarks of his style and they are manifested here to breathtaking effect. At the same time, Jansons possesses and harnesses an intense interpretative energy, lending the whole performance an inevitability of direction and giving the symphonic climaxes an utterly natural, visceral force.
His Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is with him all the way, playing magnificently and responding both alertly and mellifluously to the nuances of his conception of the music. The final pages are spine-tingling, partly because they have such powerful momentum and electricity, but also because Jansons has so thoroughly prepared the entire structure to culminate in this dramatic denouement.
The performance is also blessed with four superlative soloists in Krassimira Stoyanova, Lioba Braun, Michael Schade and Michael Volle, and with the well-drilled and magnificent vocal sound of the Bavarian Radio Chorus.
All in all, a fine testament to Jansons’s art and a classic Beethoven “Choral”.
No comments:
Post a Comment