Tape what's good, junk the rest
Mark McCue | Denver, CO USA | 08/02/2000
(3 out of 5 stars)
"It took courage to put some of this out. And I question the need to perpetrate some of it. It really shows Munch in all his magnificent greatness...counterbalanced with warts breaking out all over those feet of clay. It's probably the most honest thing that's come out with Munch, but some of it makes for "tricky" listening.First, the Fantastique: this document shows how Munch began to make the work a caricature of himself and eventually Berlioz. It was something he did far too often to the point of the grotesque. This is for curiosity only, though I suppose some "Munchiers" will find it one of their many revelations.The Beethoven 7th is nowhere up to his first Boston version, but it still makes for some good listening. Everything is well-judged, particularly his attention to balance and the felicities of orchestration. The third movement is really a bit slow.This is one he DIDN'T do so much. It's not bad, but not really worth the price you're paying for it. All of the Honegger, on the other hand, outdoes what he did in the studio! This all is absolutely first rate interpretatively and if you excuse some of the usual sorts of mistakes that happen in concerts, they can serve as primary sources for you. What a service Munch did for the splendid composer Honegger was! It was a musical pairing unique in the century.The Dutilleux is ragged and rushed, Munch's stereo release with the Lamoureux walks all over it and if you're buying this set, you surely have that. The Sibelius is forgettable, a bit corny while trying to be wistful--this was not Munch's composer. The Roussel is also outclaassed by his Boston and Lamoureux sessions--much finer playing if not in the B & A so much the sound--so try to run across those somewhere, though these attempts are not exactly a scrub-job. The B & A is pushy and kind of insensitive, as if the conductor didn't feel well and wanted to go home.On the whole, I'd buy this for the Honegger to copy, then trade it in. The producers could have released just it and Munch's legacy would have been the better for it.So, if the producers thought this was worth tarting up, why don't they release all those ORTF concert tapes they have squirreled away of Munch's confrere Paul Paray? He was an interpreter who could better anyone for consistency in executional quality and interpretative insight, whether in the studio or somewhere else. And he had that unique luminous Paray sound unlike Munch who would take almost anything an orchestra gave him the first time around. I have a sneaking suspicion old Paray would give CD listeners who buy live performances far more value than Munch gives here."
