Rachmaninoff: Symphony 1 + Symphonic Dances

Approfondimenti

The Philadelphia Orchestra's relationship with Rachmaninov's music is long and deep, dating back to the composer himself and the days of Eugene Ormandy, whom he admired. The bred-in-the-bone quality of the orchestra's Rachmaninov playing is fully audible here, nowhere more than in the waltz slow movement of the Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, with its fetching string work. Yet conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is no Ormandy clone, and these are fresh and exciting performances. In the Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 13, he takes on just the quality that made the symphony a failure at its premiere, where Glazunov said that it didn't make any sense. The opening movement is complex, with a fugal passage and hyper-detailed instrumental textures that, without the control of a conductor with an overarching view of the score, do not quite cohere. Nézet-Séguin is in control all the way as the symphony moves through a series of climaxes, a rhythmically free slow movement, and in the end, the giant tam-tam stroke which the conductor lets resonate thoroughly. It's a performance that rewards multiple hearings. The Symphonic Dances actually do not fare quite as well, with Nézet-Séguin indulging in rubato in the slow movement that seems at odds with the work's stated dance qualities. Listener mileage may well vary here, however, and a major attraction, either way, will be Deutsche Grammophon's engineering work at Philadelphia's Verizon Hall, an acoustically superior space that engineers are mastering; it fits the aims of the performers perfectly.

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