{"id":36583,"date":"2016-05-01T13:40:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T17:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=36583"},"modified":"2016-05-01T13:40:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T17:40:21","slug":"record-keeping-pittsburgh-symphony-orchestra-tchaikovsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/05\/01\/record-keeping-pittsburgh-symphony-orchestra-tchaikovsky\/","title":{"rendered":"RECORD KEEPING | Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra: Tchaikovsky\/Dvo\u0159\u00e1k (Reference Recordings)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck don’t hide the passion in a new recording of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 and Dvo\u0159\u00e1k’s Rusalka Fantasy.<\/h3>\n
\"Tchaikovsky:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 & Dvor\u00e1k: Rusalka Fantasy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in b minor Op. 74 \u201cPath<\/strong>\u00e9tique\u201d. Dvo<\/strong>\u0159\u00e1k (arr.Honeck\/Ille): Rusalka Fantasy. Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra\/Manfred Honeck. Reference Recordings FR-720SACD. Total Time: 67.03.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The notes Conductor Manfred Honeck writes for his own recordings often provide useful insights into what he is trying to achieve in his performances. His approach to the Tchaikovsky Path<\/em>\u00e9tique<\/em> Symphony, for example, comes across as cautionary, as he explicitly warns (himself) against \u201cexaggeration, excessiveness and impatience.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has become somewhat fashionable these days to complain about performers who put too much emotion into the music they are playing, especially music by composers such as Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. \u201cJust play the music,\u201d contemporary scolds might say, and \u2018let it speak for itself.\u201d I think not. There is a lot of music into which composers pour their heart and soul, doing their best to translate that passion into \u201cnotes\u201d on a page. After that, surely it is up to the performer to recreate the \u201csound\u201d of that passion.<\/p>\n

Is it \u201cexaggeration\u201d to play Tchaikovsky with the utmost commitment and emotion? Is it \u201cexcessiveness\u201d to give Tchaikovsky the full range of his own dynamics from pppppp<\/em> to ffff<\/em>? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Honeck doesn\u2019t follow his own advice and with his stellar Pittsburgh players gives us a fully inflected rendition of the Path<\/em>\u00e9tique.<\/em> He has the strings of the Pittsburgh Symphony often sounding like the Vienna Philharmonic \u2013 Honeck was a violinist in the Vienna Philharmonic in his younger days \u2013 and the power of the orchestra is a fearsome thing to behold in the great climaxes. This is an excellent performance, beautifully captured by the Reference Recordings production team from Soundmirror in Boston. For an even more vivid realisation of the piece, I would refer interested listeners to Claudio Abbado\u2019s hair-raising performance with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, given at the Lucerne Easter Festival in March 2010 (Accentus Music DVD ACC 20101<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Dvorak\u2019s opera Rusalka<\/em> contains some of the finest music the composer ever wrote; unfortunately, with the exception of the well-known \u201cSong to the Moon\u201d aria, this music rarely makes its way into the concert hall. As a \u201cfiller\u201d for this new CD, Maestro Honeck and composer Tom\u00e1\u0161 Ille put together a suite from Rusalka<\/em>, which opens with some rambunctious dance music from Act II and includes a beautiful version of the \u201cSong to the Moon\u201d with a solo violin (Noah Bendix-Balgley) taking the soprano part. Again, the sound and style of the playing suggest Vienna or Prague rather than Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

I urge listeners who are not familiar with the opera, to get their hands on a recording of Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s Rusalka<\/em> with Charles Mackerras leading the Vienna Philharmonic with Ren\u00e9e Fleming and Ben Heppner heading a fine cast. In my opinion, this is the only recording that does this Rusalka<\/em> justice. The final duet, surely one of Heppner\u2019s finest performances, will break your heart.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0Musical Toronto on Facebook<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>for the latest classical and opera news, funny stuff, and an insider POV.<\/span><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Manfred Honeck don’t hide the passion in new recording of Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 and Dvo\u0159\u00e1k’s Rusalka Fantasy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,77,5739,51,52],"tags":[2054,5850,2672],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/71VmrY3eAAL._SL1425_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9w3","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36585,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36583\/revisions\/36585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36583"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=36583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}