Search - Edouard Lalo, Giancarlo Andretta, Basel Symphony Orchestra :: Eduoard Lalo: Symphony in G minor; Rhapsody; etc.

A Fine Lalo Sampler

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 12/07/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"OK. I have to confess that the chief reason I bought this disc as opposed to Yondani Butt's mostly well received rival on ASV is that Andretta includes Lalo's Divertissements, the rarest piece on the disc. And, well, it's a nice, light work except that the finale is weaker than the rest (the same problem afflicts the Symphony for some critics), but I'm content with the Andretta recording on other scores. First, the conductor really throws himself into these pieces. Tempos are mostly brisk, and he pulls out as many colors as he can from Lalo's generally dark scoring in the Symphony.



This is a problem work. Many critics think it doesn't hold together well, and they come down hard on the last movement, calling it the weakest. True, this movement, with its swaggering march theme, doesn't seem to fit into the general scheme of the symphony, with its dark and brooding first movement, its restless Adagio. But, again, Andretta's choice of tempi help to hold the work together better than might otherwise be the case. Play the first movement too slowly and it sounds overly lugubrious. Play the last movement too slowly, and it sounds like Lalo has been trying for stately gravity and has failed miserably. Andretta catches the mood of the last movement perfectly: it should have a kind of insouciant haughtiness to it, a bit of the sardonic as well, as if Lalo is shrugging off the heaviness of the earlier movements. Well, maybe that's what Lalo intended.



The chief problem is that most Romantic symphonies have some sort of identifiable program, even if it is fairly abstract. But Lalo doesn't seem to have an overarching program in mind. This symphony does not chart a movement from tragedy to triumph as in Beethoven's Fifth or Franck's D Minor. It doesn't even seem to chart a movement from tragedy to phony triumph a la Shostakovich's Fifth. No, this is, like a Haydn symphony, a piece of absolute music pure and simple, or so it seems. No grand program, just interesting tunes and orchestration whose parts add up to maybe more than the whole. Just as Haydn's late minor-key symphonies (Number 95 is a good example) are not tragic dramas like Mozart's 40th but absolute music that happens to exploit a minor key, so, too, I believe, with Lalo's G Minor Symphony. The organizational principle is, as with Cesar Franck, cyclical; themes from the first movement recur, with varied impact, throughout the rest of the symphony. Does this principle make Lalo's intentions any clearer? No. Why, for example, does the jaunty scherzo end with a slow, subdued reference to the principle theme of the first movement? Is Lalo making the point that for every party, there must be the inevitable hangover? Search me! It may just be that our own expectations for the work let us down. Taken on the symphony's own terms, it is an enjoyable piece that you want to hear again, if only to try to make it all hang together in the mind.



Andretta does as well by this symphony as anybody can, though Beecham's treatment (on EMI) is legendary. With the Rhapsody norvegienne and Scherzo in D Minor, Andretta doesn't have to work so hard. Both are colorful, energetic, immediately appealing compositions, especially the Scherzo. Andretta is very fast in this piece, and while other interpretations score different points for the work, Andretta's is certainly thrilling. Incidentally, the scherzo of the symphony is just as fine as this stand-alone scherzo, with an impetuous coda that really sticks in the mind.



The Basle Symphony does very well by all this music, responding with alacrity to Andretta's snappy tempos. And CPO's engineers supply a nicely transparent recording that helps clarify Lalo's orchestration, which can end up sounding bottom-heavy in the wrong hands. All in all, a very enjoyable disc."