WAGNER Die fliegende Holländer:
Overture (1860 version). Tannhäuser:
Overture. Rienzi: Overture. Lohengrin: Preludes to Acts I and III
Hiroshi Wakasugi, conductor
Staatskapelle Dresden
Berlin Classics 0300923 (51:54)
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New classical music releases reviewed in detail by Gavin Dixon
Friday, 23 June 2017
WAGNER Overtures and Preludes Wakasugi
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Another disc of Wagner overtures to sit on your shelf
next to Böhm, Solti, Elder, Järvi, Barenboim, Boult....In fact, Hiroshi Wakasugi
need fear no comparison with any of those luminaries—his collection turns out
to be up there with the best. The Dresden orchestra demonstrates, yet again,
their keen sense for Wagner’s idiom, the early digital sound, from 1984, though
a little dry, is clear and involving, and the conducting is expansive but with
plenty of detail and rhythmic focus.
Hiroshi Wakasugi (1935–2009) was born in New York to
Japanese parents. He trained in Japan, then divided his career mostly between
Japan, West Germany and Switzerland. In Japan, he was known as a new music
specialist, conducting the national premieres of Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion and Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten. He was also the principal
conductor of the WDR SO 1977–83 and of the Zürich Tonhalle 1987–1991. As an
opera conductor, he held appointments at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, New National
Theater Tokyo, and with the Semperoper Dresden.
All of which suggests a conductor with a good working
knowledge of the German repertoire, which this recording fully vindicates.
Wakasugi generally takes slow tempos, and the soundscape always has breadth and
scale. Yet he also retains a keen focus on the direction of the music, and
draws strong attacks from the woodwind and brass. That, combined with the sheer
quality of the orchestral playing, gives Wakasugi considerable interpretive
freedom—not having to head straight into the respective operas is probably an
advantage too. He takes risks, not all of which pay off. The Rienzi Overture is too slow here: The
gentle introduction feels like it will never get going, and the following Allegro energico is anything but.
He also sometimes pushes the brass too far, compromising their trademark tonal
precision. In particular the Lohengrin
act III Prelude, taken slow and with very loud brass interjections, is too much
for the horn section, who audibly struggle.
The best of these performances is in the quieter
music, where the strings come into their own. The Tannhäuser Overture and Lohengrin
act I Prelude are both magnificent, with Wakasugi maintaining the long lines at his steady
tempos—like Thielemann but without the frown. The Flying Dutchman is also given a weighty reading. The brass are
more secure here, making this an ideal program opener.
The recording was made in a Dresden church, the
Lukaskirche, and the resulting audio is studio quality. Berlin Classics
describe this release as a 2017 remaster (by Christoph Stickel), so there may
have been some modern magic worked on the tapes. The dynamic range is very wide,
so don’t turn up the volume too high for the opening of Tannhäuser or you’ll be in for a shock. This is being marketed as a
historic reissue, based I suspect more on the reputation of the orchestra than
the conductor. Sadly, there isn’t much else from him in the catalog; he seems
to mainly appear on opera selections CDs, many featuring Wagner. Still, I’d
have liked to have heard a full Lohengrin
from him; the Prelude here suggests he’d have done something special with
it. The only other regret over this excellent release is its short running
time, the premature ending emphasized by the unusually abrupt close to the Lohengrin act III Prelude. It leaves you
wanting more.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Bruckner Symphony No. 6 Rémy Ballot
Bruckner Symphony No. 6 Rémy Ballot
Oberösterreichisches Jugendsinfonieorchester
Rémy Ballot, cond
Gramola (SACD: 69:08)
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This
the fourth in a series of Bruckner recordings from conductor Rémy Ballot on the
Gramola label, and the second to feature the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony
Orchestra, following an Eighth Symphony with them in 2014 (Gramola 99054). All
were recorded at the Brucknertage, a festival of the composer’s music held
annually at the St. Florian monastery where he spent the early years of his
career, and where he is buried—the basilica there obviously having strong
connections with the composer’s work, but also providing a “cathedral of sound”
atmosphere, conducive, in theory at least, with the scale of his symphonies.
The
first thing to say about this interpretation is that it is long. Very long. At
over 69 minutes it is well within Celibidache territory. In fact, it is even
longer than the one currently available Celibidache recording, with the Munich
Philharmonic from 1991 (Warner 56694), which times in at 66 minutes. That makes
Ballot a strong contender for the slowest reading on record, a dubious honor
indeed.
So
why the snail’s pace? My guess is that Ballot is negotiating a resonant church
acoustic and feels he needs space to bring out the details. But if so, I’d
expect to hear tightly shaped phrases and long pauses after climaxes, neither
of which he offers. Also, the acoustic doesn’t sound too resonant on the
recording, bar a slight and distant echo on the lower brass after some tuttis,
although close-up miking may be the issue here.
The
comparison with Celibidache is instructive, as it demonstrates how fluid the
older conductor’s stately tempos were. Ballot, by contrast, rarely uses
significant tempo changes to shape the music significantly, and only speeds up
when the score obliges him, and even then it seems under duress. The youth
orchestra, to its credit, copes well with the inevitably drawn-out phrases,
with the woodwinds in particular holding their tone across the long lines. The
unity of the string sound is impressive for a youth orchestra, although their
tone lacks character, and it would be nice to hear a bit more punch from them
on the few occasions that Bruckner has them lead the charge into a climax. The
brass sound is impressively controlled, with the narrow-bore instruments giving
a good measure of central European color. Typically for a youth orchestra, the
brass section is bolstered, with six horns playing four parts, and four
trumpets and trombones playing three parts each. But the results balance well
with the rest of the ensemble and never overpower.
The
SACD audio favors precision over atmosphere, for reasons surmised above, and
does full justice to all of the young players. Ultimately, though, Ballot’s
slow and unimaginative conducting makes this release little more than a
souvenir or a curiosity. A few seconds of applause is included at the end, but
it doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.
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