Rachmaninov - The Isle of the Dead (John Wilson, Sinfonia of London)

[Master Jacques]

Interesting to hear Alysson Devenish (talking about this performance) using the adjective "filmic" with a positive spin - it used to be a big put down, which perhaps shows how tastes and criteria have changed, these days. On the other hand, her descriptor might have been just a penny-and-slot response to the conductor's stock-in-trade.

I have to agree with her about that feeling of "lack of space" in these Rachmaninov performances. My own sense is that Wilson's lucrative film work is starting to affect his conducting in a way which is not helpful, as he increasingly adopts a driving style, moving things along at all costs.

It is true that this is a virtue with film music written to fill precise spaces, but in my opinion it is starting to produce a sense of superficial skating over the surface in slow-cooked symphonies and tone poems such as Rachmaninov's 2nd or Bax's Tintagel. Wilson is a gifted conductor, but I wonder whether he needs to take stock of where so much film music-making is leading him? (Doubtless I shall be accused of "elitism" for voicing this!)

[Ein Heldenleben]

Interesting you should post this as that’s exactly why I thought about the recording - it sounded dull and superficial almost as if the conductor hadn’t understood the orchestral texture. I remember a live RFH performance with Jurowski and the LPO where that opening string rocking sound was as if the boat was about to capsize - tremendously emotionally disturbing . This in contrast was a trip on a boating pond. This piece is very much underrated and is , in my view , something of a 20th century masterpiece. It is also exceptionally difficult to perform convincingly.

[Master Jacques]

Interesting you should post this as that’s exactly why I thought about the recording - it sounded dull and superficial almost as if the conductor hadn’t understood the orchestral texture. I remember a live RFH performance with Jurowski and the LPO where that opening string rocking sound was as if the boat was about to capsize - tremendously emotionally disturbing . This in contrast was a trip on a boating pond. This piece is very much underrated and is , in my view , something of a 20th century masterpiece. It is also exceptionally difficult to perform convincingly.

How right you are, on both counts! One of those works for which owning a single recording Will Not Do. For me, Wilson won't be joining Ashkenazy, Previn and an extraordinary "live" Svetlanov with the BBC SO.

[Ein Heldenleben]

How right you are, on both counts! One of those works for which owning a single recording Will Not Do. For me, Wilson won't be joining Ashkenazy, Previn and an extraordinary "live" Svetlanov with the BBC SO.

A Svetlanov perf of Rach 2 with the Philharmonia in the early noughties (I think) at the RFH remains , by some distance , the single best live performance of any symphonic work I’ve ever heard in person . It was absolutely astounding.

[smittims]

Ah, Svetlanov! I expect he would do the second symphony very well. I treasure memories of his Elgar 2 and 'Gerontius'.

I haven't heard Wilson do 'The Isle of the Dead' but I have admired pretty much everything I've heard him do, especially this year's Prom of British music. Is this a new CD, or a broadcast?


The work does divide listeners. I've always loved it, from the composer's own recording, and via Fritz Reiner, to a wonderful BBC performance by David Robertson about ten years ago . But the Record Guide were very sniffy about it in the 1950s, when it was fashionable to be disparaging about Rachmaninov generally, witness the notorious article in the old 'Grove'.