BaL 7.05.16 - Martinu: Symphony no. 6

[Nick Armstrong]

JLW. Where would we be without you! Thanks ever so for your most illuminating post, regarding the aforementioned!

Great stuff jayne, indeed! Plus the Thomson has (for me, and without hearing it yet) the great advantage of being a Chandos recording which always seem to sound especially good on my system here! (The Barbican context of the recommended version is by contrast a theoretical goal down, for me).

Does one infer from your post jayne that on the question raised by BBM you wouldn't necessarily put Belohlavek/BBCSO 'ahead' of Jarvi/Bergen?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

JLW. Where would we be without you! Thanks ever so for your most illuminating post, regarding the aforementioned!

[BBMmk2]

Great stuff jayne, indeed! Plus the Thomson has (for me, and without hearing it yet) the great advantage of being a Chandos recording which always seem to sound especially good on my system here! (The Barbican context of the recommended version is by contrast a theoretical goal down, for me).

Does one infer from your post jayne that on the question raised by BBM you wouldn't necessarily put Belohlavek/BBCSO 'ahead' of Jarvi/Bergen?

IMO, Cali, I would!

[jayne lee wilson]

Great stuff jayne, indeed! Plus the Thomson has (for me, and without hearing it yet) the great advantage of being a Chandos recording which always seem to sound especially good on my system here! (The Barbican context of the recommended version is by contrast a theoretical goal down, for me).

Does one infer from your post jayne that on the question raised by BBM you wouldn't necessarily put Belohlavek/BBCSO 'ahead' of Jarvi/Bergen?

No, I dislike Jarvi much more, I mentioned it as a ubiquitously overrated reference, from a time when there was little else available. "He pegs the climaxes but basically lets the stuff in between take care of itself" said David Hurwitz, which gets it spot-on, really. (Mind you, he's witheringly dismissive of Valek, so...). It's not that the detail isn't there on the BIS recording; but the cross-rhythmic and syncopatory energies never truly bite or lock into place, those inner voices, often in the winds, never speak characterfully enough of the mood (or colourfully enough in the texture - Thomson's saving grace, even when very impersonal). And the Bamberg strings are often less than gratifying - it's rather a "grey" sound orchestrally. I agonised over where to start with Martinu (all those scattered Belohlaveks and Neumanns) and the reviews led me to Jarvi, but despite those BIS dynamics I soon struggled with it even in isolation. I quickly found my way, with some relief, to Thomson, then the marvellous Ancerl (Gold edition vol. 24/34, the whole "trilogy"...I wish JS had said more about KA), and an excellent, now obscure Arte Nova issue of St. Gallen SO/Kout, for the Fantasies and the Frescoes. So when the Barbican cycle appeared, it was a case rush out to buy in breathless anticipation...

I do enjoy much of what Belohlavek does (especially with the Czech PO) despite my reservations. He truly loves this music, and does get the BBCSO to sound more idiomatic than you'd expect. But I think he's too much of the Romantic sometimes, raging (or caressing) against the Martinu rhythm-machine!

(I've just recalled my very first encounter with Martinu - Antony Hopkins Talking About Music on the Double Concerto. He began with the great threnody of the slow movement and it had a great effect on me. But with little in the local library, it was many years before I even had an off-air tape. With SNO/Thomson, Ed Seckerson's early reviews in the G. of 1/91 and 1/92 have many insights. And yes, he's full of praise for the sound! I just crammed in the andante and scherzo of BT's 2nd earlier and it's really lovely - equally gracious and pugnacious.)

[LeMartinPecheur]

I did my best to follow the whole programme closely but somehow missed the reason why the Neumann/ Supraphon got thrown out of the pram. Can anyone oblige?

(For the avoidance of doubt, if there's more than one I mean the one in the Martinu complete symphonies box, #11 0382-2 013, my only 6th.)

[EdgeleyRob]

JLW. Where would we be without you! Thanks ever so for your most illuminating post, regarding the aforementioned!

Yes Jayne,wonderful writing as always,a pity that you don't listen to Weinberg,Alkan,Leighton,Myaskovsky,Ivanovs,Alwyn.. ....

[Nick Armstrong]

No, I dislike Jarvi much more, I mentioned it as a ubiquitously overrated reference, from a time when there was little else available.

ah yes, understood! I missed your #15

[Listenfirst]

Expressive phrasing is needed for this work and Belohlavek falls short for me ,particularly in the last movement. When hearing him do this work in the concert hall the experience ha been underwhelming. In the 1980's the BBC relayed a 1966 Munch Boston concert which included Fantaisies an he made the same cut as on the Prague CD.
Jonathan Swain expressed surprise but Munch quite happily made cuts in Berlioz and Roussel so why would Martinu be any different? This 1966 performance is better by far than the 2 commercially released performances, with a superb, moving final movement.

[Richard Barrett]

Expressive phrasing is needed for this work

This is exactly right. Each moment needs to have great emotional intensity even (or especially) if this involves an abrupt expressive shift from what comes before, to bring out its dreamlike and sometimes nightmarelike quality. Again I don't know of a recording which gets this aspect right while simultaneously making audible every detail of the sometimes very complex textures. The latter quality is what I hear in Bělohlávek and Järvi and I found it pretty exciting on account of having missed that degree of precision previously, but some of the comments here have reminded me that in the end it isn't enough.

[jayne lee wilson]

Have you not heard the Thomson/SNO recording, Richard? On the 2005 remaster (golden year for Martinu remasters..!), the "laying bare" I spoke of, the analytical clarity, goes well beyond the pallid Jarvi, or any of the 3 Belohlavek recordings, as for that matter does the Prague Radio SO with Vladimir Valek.

But neither of these readings is inexpressive, are they? Rather, they have not the overt, carved-in-air phrasal moulding by the given conductor, whether Munch or Belohlavek (whose shaping and shading, phrasal and dynamic (near-allied to tonal warmth), seems to me the greatest strength of his BBCSO live reading, the best of his three). It's the sheer clarity, tonal purity, dynamic subtlety and power that so rejoices the ear and the heart in the Thomson, I become so absorbed into the textures and the flow of the music - flow and jolt - that I feel no need for a conductor's more overtly individualised creative input. (This goes for the estimable Valek too, whose recording is a little like the SNO with a Czech accent, and whose 2nd movement of the Fantaisies is truly remarkable - by far the most modernist-sounding, in its stretched-out, almost metallic textural-analytical character, I've heard or expect to hear - he really does lead the ear into unknown regions).

As for intensity, surely the moods the fantasies pass through need subtlety too, preferably without audible effortfulness. About 6'00 into the first movement, the ominous bass tread returns quietly, like a shadowy march; a solo violin wanders gloomily across the darkened landscape, singing of yearning and despair. The mood is both cool and dark. But suddenly, the solo and the massed violins raise a serene, shining version of the Martinu motto, lifting away from the shadows, a ray of light through clouds; then a more intense surge to a quasi-climax; finally the murmurous winds begin again their humming... are they ominously human or insectile, almost alien, natural phenomena? In the first two movements especially, there's a constant drama between warmer, human voices (Martinu's motto in its varying forms) and sudden eruptions of otherworldly threat; I think these rapid mood- and colour-swings are better served by performers who can vary the emotional temperature, cool things off a little before driving into the next attack. Munch's tendency to overdrive things sometimes, glossing over (or rushing past) those modal contrasts (and not only in Martinu) is one of his few faults.

***

(As for the much-undermentioned Vaclav Neumann: I downloaded the current lossless file of the 2nd Symphony's finale, and compared it to the 2005 Mastersonic issue.... the present Qobuz-European one is a thin, pale ghost of itself, the wiry, edgy violins & general lack of the Japanese issue's wondrous vibrancy sucking out much of the music's joyful blood. No wonder it often gets overlooked).

[Richard Barrett]

I do know Thomson's recording, as I think I mentioned, and almost all the others. And when I'm talking about intensity that includes the possibility of subtlety and the necessity of emotional contrast, rather than being opposed to it. The violin solo passage you refer to is a prime example. I suppose what I'm saying is that I just don't know a recording which renders the music as I would really like to hear it, which would be something like, but not identical with, a digital recording of the kind of thing Munch does. I don't necessarily expect anyone else to share this way of looking at it.

[BBMmk2]

Has Thomson recorded the whole cycle?

[jayne lee wilson]

I do know Thomson's recording, as I think I mentioned, and almost all the others. And when I'm talking about intensity that includes the possibility of subtlety and the necessity of emotional contrast, rather than being opposed to it. The violin solo passage you refer to is a prime example. I suppose what I'm saying is that I just don't know a recording which renders the music as I would really like to hear it, which would be something like, but not identical with, a digital recording of the kind of thing Munch does. I don't necessarily expect anyone else to share this way of looking at it.

Well, evidently I rejoice in all the different approaches...
Perhaps you feel that the Fantaisies Symphoniques are better than they can be played....

Do you conduct at all...?

[Richard Barrett]

Has Thomson recorded the whole cycle?

As MrGongGong often says, my internet allows me to find the answers to questions like that, what about yours?

Well, evidently I rejoice in all the different approaches...

I do too, but there's one missing! It's at moments like this when I wish I did conduct...

[PJPJ]

Has Thomson recorded the whole cycle?

Yes; a box on Chandos.

Martinu Thomson RSNO