Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Pierre Monteux, London Symphony Orchestra :: Monteux Plays Tchaikovsky

Breathtaking

David Saemann | 08/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What can one say? Here is Monteux, aged 88, on tour with his beloved London Symphony at the 1963 Vienna Festival. It is a live recording, with generally very good sound. All you can say after hearing it is, Where did that kind of music making go away to? Romeo and Juliet is given a reading full of passion and drama, even if Monteux has no conductorial tricks up his sleeve. Ogdon's playing in the Concerto is excellent, and quite remarkable for being captured in one take. Horowitz said that the three best accompanists were Barbirolli, Monteux, and Ormandy, in that order. You certainly can hear the wisdom of that remark in this performance. Monteux is with Ogdon every bar of the way, still making interesting points of his own throughout the accompaniment. The only performance of the Concerto I've heard that packs as much electricity as this one is the live Horowitz/Toscanini, and that has some shallowness that Ogdon's does not. As for the Symphony, it is a classic rendition. Monteux made a fine recording of it with the Boston Symphony, but his live version has a frisson all its own. As an interpretation, it may not surpass Dorati's or Klemperer's, but it is wholly satisfying and builds to a superb conclusion. As an example of Golden Age music making caught on the wing, this set would be very hard to equal."