SACD REVIEW: Debussy
Excerpted from High FidelityReview.com, U.K.
SACD REVIEW
© Mark Jordan ~ July 10, 2005
Paavo Järvi doesn’t stand too far off the traditional path, but, like Michel Plasson, he has a concept which recognizes the importance of the traditional French approach to orchestral sound. Thus, the rhythms are lightly sprung, the textures are kept airy and open, woodwinds are never swamped by the strings, and there is a consistent effort to find the center of gravity in each musical phrase, instead of emphasizing all notes more-or-less equally, which to a certain degree is a hallmark of the Germanic approach (and which is why, despite his taste for clarity, Boulez is as much Germanic as French). What is most remarkable about Järvi’s approach is that this deftly Francophilic approach is coming from a non-French conductor. Whereas Mitropoulos and Cantelli evoke their native lands’ Mediterranean Sea, and Boulez or Colin Davis capture more muted tones of the North Atlantic, Paavo Järvi does not merely transport Debussy’s piece to his native Estonia, nor to America where he now lives. Rather, he captures a suitably bright sound, firmly echoing the old French style. This interestingly stands in contrast with his father Neeme Järvi’s Chandos recording, which seems drenched with the chilly spray of the Baltic Sea (or perhaps that’s just waves of the sort of extra reverb Chandos used to favor). In the end, for this approach, I would still give top nod to Plasson, with special status reserved for the old Inghelbrecht recording. For the finest modern mainstream approach, Boulez continues to hold sway in La Mer, though his accompanying Nocturnes are not in the same league. Paavo Järvi’s rendition will please fans of the French style, though devotees of the Karajan approach may find this La Mer a little dry.
The piece which opens this new Telarc disc is the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun). This piece is probably Debussy’s most famous work, a dreamy orchestral evocation of the sensuous atmosphere of the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. But now it’s confession time: After decades of listening to dozens of recordings of this piece over and over again, I still can’t say that I’ve grown to care for it very much. I don’t have anything against it, but I don’t have a lot for it, either. I can recognize in an abstract way why it was so shocking and revolutionary in its day, but I have never been able to rouse any great enthusiasm for it, except for the mysteriously inconclusive final few bars. Other than that, I’ve always viewed the piece as nine minutes of meandering sound with nary a solid downbeat in sight. The Cincinnati winds are well caught in this recording, playing with color and shapely turns of phrase, and the fact that it does nothing for me is of course my problem, not the performance’s, as it joins a crowd of other famous recordings which left me respectful but unmoved. We all have our blind spots!
What a different story with the Nocturnes. They have always appealed to me, and their allure grows with every passing year. And I was pleased to find that here Paavo Järvi scores his biggest triumph. He nails a perfect pace for the elusive first nocturne, Nuages (Clouds) neither distending it like Tilson Thomas, nor over-efficiently dispatching it à la Boulez. Järvi finds a tempo that holds the fragmentary movement together yet allows for a brooding buildup of tension. Is there any other piece in the repertory which is equally devastating in such a quiet, half-spoken manner? How innovatively Debussy suggests a foggy night; instead of covering more-or-less conventional melodies with a cloud of random soft notes as Richard Strauss did in his Alpine Symphony, Debussy uses a backdrop of silence to suggest the fog. All the instrumental sounds are clear, but one gets the sense that they are merely fragments of more complete sounds which have drifted in past a curtain of silence. Here, a distant boat horn, there, a snatch of voices down the street. Järvi captures the still, gray agony exquisitely, and Telarc’s recording captures the oppressive room ambiance of the vast spaces of Cincinnati’s Music Hall, hanging impassively behind the sounds, swallowing them as quickly as they appear. In the second nocturne, Fêtes, Järvi keeps an admirable focus on the woodwinds, so that their contributions are like flashes of color in a night-time street party. For the procession in the middle of the movement, Järvi opts for on-stage trumpets played with mutes, though offstage unmuted trumpets would have provided a nice chance to move some sounds to the rear surround channels. Telarc’s recording keeps the percussion distanced enough to not overwhelm the rest of the orchestra (although more punch would have been preferable at the climax), and Järvi purposefully keeps the strings from swamping the woodwinds throughout. Telarc’s recording rightly lets the silences play an important part in this music, instead of covering all pauses with artificial reverberation. It’s hard to imagine the dry, pointillistic style of French orchestration making sense without such silence as a backdrop. Again, those who prefer to wallow in their Debussy won’t care for the recorded sound here, but I think it helps Järvi create an effective approach. Most felicitous of all is Järvi’s shaping of phrases, injecting energy into every paragraph, while always keeping plenty in reserve. Järvi is fairly spacious in the final nocturne, Sirènes, but he never sags into the slowness of the Davis or Tilson Thomas recordings. Although I might momentarily miss the reckless energy of a Monteux or Doráti careening into the central climax of Fêtes, Paavo Järvi’s performance of the Nocturnes is the best to come along in several years, outdoing Boulez/Cleveland and Abbado/Berlin quite handily, and standing proudly alongside earlier recordings by Michel Plasson and Bernard Haitink.
The Berceuse elegiaque closes the disc with the elusive half-lights of Debussy’s later works. Its less-familiar byways prove an attractive filler for this effective compilation, adding further proof to the increasingly widespread view that Paavo Järvi is the most enterprising conductor since Thomas Schippers to have held the top post in Cincinnati.
Telarc has made many recordings over the years in Cincinnati’s Music Hall, so they have certainly become familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. One challenge is that the hall is so large, orchestral sound can be swallowed up in the silences. But that very feature is used to advantage here, utilizing silence as an integral part of the music. Delicately scored music which didn’t specifically take into account the impact of silence might become dwarfed by the space, but Debussy’s approach works quite naturally in this venue. The wooden stage of the building helps create a rich and mellow orchestral sound, but the high resolution of Telarc’s DSD recording picks up the bright instrumental colors that are so central to Debussy’s sound-world. As is the usual approach for Telarc, there is a fair amount of bounceback in the surround channels to give the listener a strong sense of being within the space where the music is being played. Some may find that a tad artificial sounding, but recording is an art like everything else, and Telarc does it exceptionally well. Their goal is to create an ideal soundscape, one that is a little better in focus and presence than any true seat in Music Hall could ever be, and in that, they succeed. There is effective three-dimensional sense of depth to the orchestral sound-picture on stage, capturing the depth of the stage in real life. The combination of Järvi’s balancing, the orchestral playing, the sure deployment of the microphones, and the resolution of the DSD recording (both in stereo and multichannel) make the woodwinds a joy to the ears throughout this recording. I do feel that the percussion is arguably a little too tastefully controlled and kept at arm’s length, but the timbre of their sounds are caught clearly. The regular CD layer of this hybrid is up to Telarc’s usual fine standards, though it doesn’t come to life as vividly as the SACD layers.
In sum, Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony have given us a fine, perceptive Debussy disc. Telarc’s recorded sound works hand-in-hand with the conductor’s stylistic approach as well as with the natural sound of the hall to make Debussy’s music come to life with its French flavors intact. Järvi’s Nocturnes is the best to come along in many years, and claims a distinguished place among the many competing recordings. The rest of the program is not quite as sharply characterized, but still fares well in Järvi’s deft hands. The Telarc recording is fine as well, lacking only a little boisterousness from the percussion in the climaxes.
SACD REVIEW
© Mark Jordan ~ July 10, 2005
Paavo Järvi doesn’t stand too far off the traditional path, but, like Michel Plasson, he has a concept which recognizes the importance of the traditional French approach to orchestral sound. Thus, the rhythms are lightly sprung, the textures are kept airy and open, woodwinds are never swamped by the strings, and there is a consistent effort to find the center of gravity in each musical phrase, instead of emphasizing all notes more-or-less equally, which to a certain degree is a hallmark of the Germanic approach (and which is why, despite his taste for clarity, Boulez is as much Germanic as French). What is most remarkable about Järvi’s approach is that this deftly Francophilic approach is coming from a non-French conductor. Whereas Mitropoulos and Cantelli evoke their native lands’ Mediterranean Sea, and Boulez or Colin Davis capture more muted tones of the North Atlantic, Paavo Järvi does not merely transport Debussy’s piece to his native Estonia, nor to America where he now lives. Rather, he captures a suitably bright sound, firmly echoing the old French style. This interestingly stands in contrast with his father Neeme Järvi’s Chandos recording, which seems drenched with the chilly spray of the Baltic Sea (or perhaps that’s just waves of the sort of extra reverb Chandos used to favor). In the end, for this approach, I would still give top nod to Plasson, with special status reserved for the old Inghelbrecht recording. For the finest modern mainstream approach, Boulez continues to hold sway in La Mer, though his accompanying Nocturnes are not in the same league. Paavo Järvi’s rendition will please fans of the French style, though devotees of the Karajan approach may find this La Mer a little dry.
The piece which opens this new Telarc disc is the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun). This piece is probably Debussy’s most famous work, a dreamy orchestral evocation of the sensuous atmosphere of the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. But now it’s confession time: After decades of listening to dozens of recordings of this piece over and over again, I still can’t say that I’ve grown to care for it very much. I don’t have anything against it, but I don’t have a lot for it, either. I can recognize in an abstract way why it was so shocking and revolutionary in its day, but I have never been able to rouse any great enthusiasm for it, except for the mysteriously inconclusive final few bars. Other than that, I’ve always viewed the piece as nine minutes of meandering sound with nary a solid downbeat in sight. The Cincinnati winds are well caught in this recording, playing with color and shapely turns of phrase, and the fact that it does nothing for me is of course my problem, not the performance’s, as it joins a crowd of other famous recordings which left me respectful but unmoved. We all have our blind spots!
What a different story with the Nocturnes. They have always appealed to me, and their allure grows with every passing year. And I was pleased to find that here Paavo Järvi scores his biggest triumph. He nails a perfect pace for the elusive first nocturne, Nuages (Clouds) neither distending it like Tilson Thomas, nor over-efficiently dispatching it à la Boulez. Järvi finds a tempo that holds the fragmentary movement together yet allows for a brooding buildup of tension. Is there any other piece in the repertory which is equally devastating in such a quiet, half-spoken manner? How innovatively Debussy suggests a foggy night; instead of covering more-or-less conventional melodies with a cloud of random soft notes as Richard Strauss did in his Alpine Symphony, Debussy uses a backdrop of silence to suggest the fog. All the instrumental sounds are clear, but one gets the sense that they are merely fragments of more complete sounds which have drifted in past a curtain of silence. Here, a distant boat horn, there, a snatch of voices down the street. Järvi captures the still, gray agony exquisitely, and Telarc’s recording captures the oppressive room ambiance of the vast spaces of Cincinnati’s Music Hall, hanging impassively behind the sounds, swallowing them as quickly as they appear. In the second nocturne, Fêtes, Järvi keeps an admirable focus on the woodwinds, so that their contributions are like flashes of color in a night-time street party. For the procession in the middle of the movement, Järvi opts for on-stage trumpets played with mutes, though offstage unmuted trumpets would have provided a nice chance to move some sounds to the rear surround channels. Telarc’s recording keeps the percussion distanced enough to not overwhelm the rest of the orchestra (although more punch would have been preferable at the climax), and Järvi purposefully keeps the strings from swamping the woodwinds throughout. Telarc’s recording rightly lets the silences play an important part in this music, instead of covering all pauses with artificial reverberation. It’s hard to imagine the dry, pointillistic style of French orchestration making sense without such silence as a backdrop. Again, those who prefer to wallow in their Debussy won’t care for the recorded sound here, but I think it helps Järvi create an effective approach. Most felicitous of all is Järvi’s shaping of phrases, injecting energy into every paragraph, while always keeping plenty in reserve. Järvi is fairly spacious in the final nocturne, Sirènes, but he never sags into the slowness of the Davis or Tilson Thomas recordings. Although I might momentarily miss the reckless energy of a Monteux or Doráti careening into the central climax of Fêtes, Paavo Järvi’s performance of the Nocturnes is the best to come along in several years, outdoing Boulez/Cleveland and Abbado/Berlin quite handily, and standing proudly alongside earlier recordings by Michel Plasson and Bernard Haitink.
The Berceuse elegiaque closes the disc with the elusive half-lights of Debussy’s later works. Its less-familiar byways prove an attractive filler for this effective compilation, adding further proof to the increasingly widespread view that Paavo Järvi is the most enterprising conductor since Thomas Schippers to have held the top post in Cincinnati.
Telarc has made many recordings over the years in Cincinnati’s Music Hall, so they have certainly become familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. One challenge is that the hall is so large, orchestral sound can be swallowed up in the silences. But that very feature is used to advantage here, utilizing silence as an integral part of the music. Delicately scored music which didn’t specifically take into account the impact of silence might become dwarfed by the space, but Debussy’s approach works quite naturally in this venue. The wooden stage of the building helps create a rich and mellow orchestral sound, but the high resolution of Telarc’s DSD recording picks up the bright instrumental colors that are so central to Debussy’s sound-world. As is the usual approach for Telarc, there is a fair amount of bounceback in the surround channels to give the listener a strong sense of being within the space where the music is being played. Some may find that a tad artificial sounding, but recording is an art like everything else, and Telarc does it exceptionally well. Their goal is to create an ideal soundscape, one that is a little better in focus and presence than any true seat in Music Hall could ever be, and in that, they succeed. There is effective three-dimensional sense of depth to the orchestral sound-picture on stage, capturing the depth of the stage in real life. The combination of Järvi’s balancing, the orchestral playing, the sure deployment of the microphones, and the resolution of the DSD recording (both in stereo and multichannel) make the woodwinds a joy to the ears throughout this recording. I do feel that the percussion is arguably a little too tastefully controlled and kept at arm’s length, but the timbre of their sounds are caught clearly. The regular CD layer of this hybrid is up to Telarc’s usual fine standards, though it doesn’t come to life as vividly as the SACD layers.
In sum, Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony have given us a fine, perceptive Debussy disc. Telarc’s recorded sound works hand-in-hand with the conductor’s stylistic approach as well as with the natural sound of the hall to make Debussy’s music come to life with its French flavors intact. Järvi’s Nocturnes is the best to come along in many years, and claims a distinguished place among the many competing recordings. The rest of the program is not quite as sharply characterized, but still fares well in Järvi’s deft hands. The Telarc recording is fine as well, lacking only a little boisterousness from the percussion in the climaxes.
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