As regular readers will know, I’ve often been unimpressed by Gergiev’s sadly variable LSO Mahler cycle, where he often had even less to say about the music than Ashkenazy. I’m happy to say I was entranced by this 2-CD set from beginning to end. For once, the cliché “unjustly neglected” is totally accurate in describing the shameful overlooking of these three genuine masterpieces. The First and Third have long been my favourite Tchaikovsky symphonies; until now my preferred version of No 1 was the youthful Michael Tilson Thomas with his Boston forces, and in the Third either Bernstein’s 1960s New York Philharmonic or Karajan’s 1980s Berlin Phil. Gergiev’s First, Winter Daydreams, is simply gorgeous. The combination of panache, finesse and imagination in the first movement is wonderful: you can almost feel the chill on the rosy cheeks of Romanov aristocrats with exquisite noses and perfect cheekbones, as they travel through the wondrous winter landscape, swathed in sable in a troika. The tender phrasing of the second subject is worth the price of the set alone. The second movement is a wistful reverie and the scherzo is jewel-like. I’ve often regarded the Second Symphony, the so-called Little Russian, aka Ukraine, as…

In 1910, the Band of the Grenadier Guards serenaded Her Majesty with a selection from Elektra. (George V promptly sent down a message saying he didn’t know what it was that they had just played, but it was never to be played again!) Despite the royal vote of no confidence, the opera has become a modern classic and a classic of modernism, in which Strauss went further harmonically than he would ever again.  In this live 2010 recording, the LSO’s principal conductor shows not only that he appreciates Strauss’s daring orchestrations, but also that he’s a master of the dramatic pacing in Hofmannsthal’s gripping Sophocles adaptation. The members of the orchestra play their hearts out in a finely engineered recording that, thanks to Gergiev, is frequently revelatory. Sadly, this recording has a massive drawback in the Elektra of Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet. A pronnounced vibrato across the entire range is the first problem to beset the ear. Coupled with a tendency to fall flat at the top or miss certain key notes altogether, her performance is a bit of a roadcrash. The rest of the cast ranges from superb (Dame Felicity Palmer’s baleful Clytemnestra steals the show)… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…