Alsop is a natural in Dvorak
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 05/27/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Because of her contract with Naxos, Marin Alsop has opportunities to record standard repertoire that even far more famous conductors don't (when did Slatkin, Tilson Thomas, or Levine last make a recording of Dvorak? a complete Brahms cycle?). This CD completes alsop's trio of late Dvorak symphonies, following on a "new World" that I liked a great deal, feeling that it might be her single best recording to date. Of the three last symphonies, the seventh is the most difficult to bring off, thanks to its tricky tempo relationships and ambiguous moods. I must say, Alsop hasn't lost her touch. She finds a natural, flowing style in the first two movements that is tender and expressive. The Scherzo has a very sweet-sounding Trio, but the main Furiant is too low-key. The only real letdown is the finale, however, where she inserts some mannered pauses and fails to find the kind of dramatic intensity that sets great performances apart.
The Eighth is easier to conduct, and with three pastoral movements, it's more suited to Alsop's approach, which favors flow over drama. As one hears in the Adagio, she has the Baltimore strings playing with persuasive precision. As far as virtuosity goes, this isn't a world-class orchestra, but a few soloists stand out, especially the first horn. Alsop brings out the graceful lightness of the Scherzo (it's marked Allegretto grazioso), yet the music needs more emphasis, even so. The finale opens with a brisk fanfare that lacks impact, but the great cello melody is shaped with conviction, and on the whole things proceed with a good momentum to the end.
I didn't find this pairing as impressive as her "New world," but it's amazing to see Naxos grow up into a label noted for good sound, fine orchestras, and major talent on the podium."
Marin Alsop, BaltimoreSO: Dvorak Sym 7-8: Fresh, Clean, Lyri
Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 05/29/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Just listening to Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony these days is often a refreshing experience. Baltimore sounds like a USA regional band that is involved-in love with the music they are doing now. Several music directors have been building up the band departments for a while now ... Comissiona, Zinman ... so that current Music Director Alsop can step into a promising situation of musical-institutional growth as a North American music leader. Oh yes, don't forget that, as a woman she is breaking the glass ceiling that has often restrained women conductors from upper echelon posts.
Just pulling out this new disc of Dvorak Symphonies 7 and 8, I thought of the Colorado Symphony. Alsop has led them, too. They have also recorded for Naxos. Who would I rather hear in Dvorak - Colorado? Or, Baltimore? Well, Baltimore, as it happens, at least for now.
Just a while back, Naxos released Alsop in Baltimore doing the venerated-populist Dvorak ninth symphony. From the New World, indeed. No, Alsop and her east coast regional band did not quite capture the Old World sheen and snap that I associate with my existing keeper shelf residents. (Horenstein with the RPO, Giulini in Amsterdam, Sawallisch in Philadelphia, Libor Pesek in Liverpool, Neumann in Prague, Colin Davis in Amsterdam, Kubelik in Berlin)
What Alsop and Baltimore did offer up, handsomely, was an engaged, clean, singing performance - rather in persistent keeping with American manners, focused on the music at hand. One of the winning qualities of that reading of the Dvorak Ninth was how the musical spotlight stayed, right on the composer, rather than becoming an occasion for calling big attention to the conductorial flash-splash. A musical project, then - not a vanity project.
For Naxos, this Dvorak series is a step up, too. Congrats to the path-breaking label.
Okay, so the Dvorak Ninth was a keeper; and so is this second release. (One wishes Naxos would go ahead and finish off the preceding six Dvorak symphonies with these same performers; but word has it that the label and musicians are turning their efforts to bring us a complete Prokofiev symphony set, instead. How DO these A&R choices get made? Oops, Dvorak interruptus.)
Rather than set up patently unfair comparisons, I went to the back shelves to pull off a Real Sound set with Julian Kovatchev leading the Giuseppe Verdi Orchestra in Trieste.
All band departments are present and playing alertly; no instrumental dead wood. Real Sound offers up Dvorak from a big farther back in the hall, while Baltimore had the engineers at Naxos putting the microphones up closer.
In the seventh, Kovatchev lingers and relishes just a good tad more than Alsop. He emphasizes graceful curves in his phrasing, even more; while Alsop has her Baltimore players sticking far closer to a clean yet lyrical take on the through-line of the musical paragraphs. Neither strategy imposes unduly on the Dvorak at hand, and both allow the real sense of the real composer to shine through. In the big moments, Kovatchev unleashes more heft, more dramatically. Alsop keeps it all, light and lively.
Detractors will fault Trieste for not being a Big Ten band; or Baltimore, for being regional. But we already have telling readings of Dvorak from Philadelphia, Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Prague. Can a regional band still be musical? Enough that a disc goes to the keeper shelves?
My sense of the answer is, Yes.
Alsop and Baltimore have a consistent - and consistently engaged - musical approach to the composer. Clearly, the reading sounds like everybody likes Dvorak. And the Bohemian-Czech folk lilt, warmth, and open airish frisk that helps define Dvorak to North Americans comes through in these readings, no doubt. Also much to the good, the Baltimore venue has a more focused, real world hall soundstage than the disastrous London Colosseum venue that detracted from Alsop in her Brahms series for Naxos.
I'd say that the three later symphonies have been so successful that Naxos ought to consider doing the rest of the Dvorak symphonies. If this higher level of regional band music-making is sustained, I no doubt will like the forthcoming near future Prokofiev symphonies quite a lot; but I still feel interrupted in the new Naxos love affair with Dvorak, played in Baltimore.
Two discs of Dvorak, five stars for musicality. Keepers."
Track Listings (8) - Disc #1