Édouard Lalo (1823-1892)
Overture to Le Roi d’Ys (1875-1888)
Valse de la cigarette from Namouna (1868-1871)
Suite No.1 from Namouna (1868-1871)
Suite No.2 from Namouna (1868-1871
Symphony in G minor (1886)
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi
rec. 2022, Estonia Concert Hall, Tallinn, Estonia
Chandos CHAN20183 [77]
In April 1984 Neeme Järvi made his first recording for Chandos – a justly acclaimed collection of Rimsky-Korsakov opera suites and overtures with the (then) SNO. Fast forward thirty eight years and Jarvi celebrated his 86th birthday during the sessions for his latest Chandos disc of Lalo with his home country’s Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. A remarkable feature of this long and active career in and out of the studio is a relentless quest for new repertoire. Not for Järvi an Indian Summer revisiting for the second or third time core works in his repertoire. I have been trying to think of any major repertoire that Järvi has returned to on disc. In the near-forty year recording career Järvi has covered a wider range of Romantic and 20th Century repertoire than just about any equivalent conductor I can recall. Alongside this relentless quest for new music Järvi has a remarkably consistent performing style which he has carried forward into his ninth decade. He never indulges, the preference is for crisply articulated rhythms and tempi incisively played. Energy and dynamism are enduring characteristics. This style clearly fits some music better than others with some works emerging as thrilling and compelling while some can seem detached and hasty. When the interpretative and musical stars align the results were – and remain – superb.
Most recently, and perhaps surprisingly, Järvi has turned his attention to Romantic French repertoire ranging from Saint-Saëns to rare French Ballet and Stage music. This new disc focuses on the music of Édouard Lalo. Hugh Macdonald’s typically informative liner notes describes Lalo’s struggle for recognition in his own lifetime and his enduring fame rests on a small handful of works of which the Symphonie espagnole remains the best known with a cello concerto also featuring in concert programmes to this day. Back when overtures routinely opened concerts the Overture to ‘Le Roi d’Ys’ was relatively familiar but these days such works are almost exclusively consigned to compilation recordings. Looking in the current catalogue I was surprised to see how few surveys of Lalo’s work – aside from the concertante music – are currently available. Not even the ubiquitous Naxos has produced such a collection. The back catalogue and usual marketplace sources reveal a couple of discs (rather good actually) from Yondani Butt on ASV as well as odds and ends from various conductors and labels. So even if this new disc was not as generous or as well-played as it is, it would be very welcome.
The programme includes most of Lalo’s major orchestral scores with the exception of a Scherzo which appears on Butt’s disc of the Symphony and Overture and also an earlier Chandos disc of the lesser-known violin concerti with Yan Pascal Tortelier and Olivier Charlier. Tortelier includes the overture too. The other ‘missing’ work is the Rapsodie Norvegienne – again played by Butt, Antonio de Almeida and Jean Martinon.
Järvi’s return to his homeland and the close relationship he has with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra has produced some very fine recordings. This new one, to my ear, shows the strengths and occasional limitations of Järvi’s interpretative approach and the sound of the orchestra as recorded in the Estonia Concert Hall. Technically the orchestra play very well indeed and the sound – produced, engineered and edited by Kaspar Karner – is big, dynamic and exciting. However, not all of this music needs to be big, dynamic and exciting. Grace and elegance are present too and in these sections or movements I find the playing – as recorded – too muscular and often simply too fast.
This is not an issue in the opening overture which is imposing and grand in the best French tradition. Listen to the closing passages with fanfaring brass – surely emulating Berlioz – driving the work to an exciting conclusion. But it is here that I feel the hall acoustic imposes itself on the music in a not wholly supportive way. Interesting to compare the “Chandos Sound” given the BBC PO for Tortelier in this same passage; the New Broadcasting House acoustic in 1999 is warm and supportive but does not impact the orchestral sound with trumpets clear and incisive. In Tallinn – played at a very similar tempo – the sound is full and the playing fine but the result lacks the clarity and sparkle of the earlier version in purely sonic terms. Then there is the question of the actual orchestral sound. The Estonians are big-boned players with a full dynamic sound and much individual virtuosity. Turning to the Orchestra National de l’Opera de Monte Carlo who play for Antonio de Almeida and the difference is immediately clear. The oboe and clarinet solos in the first couple of minutes have that plangency and edge that used to typify the French orchestral sound. Indeed the sound across the whole orchestra is leaner – and rough-edged! – compared to the slicker Estonians. Perhaps most idiomatic of all is the L’Orchestre de la O.R.T.F. for Jean Martinon on the old DG LP released in 1971 of the two Namouna suites included here. They have the character of the Monte Carlo players but greater technical finesse and the recording is still very good indeed for being over half a century old.
Having written a Grand Opera, but before it was staged, Lalo was commissioned to write an extended ballet. He asked for a year but delays in finalising the libretto meant that between confirmation of the work and first performance were just four months. Working under intense pressure he suffered a minor stroke and so accepted Gounod’s offer to help with orchestrating parts of the score (which parts I am not sure). As in other countries, France’s cultural life was divided into pro and anti Wagnerian camps. The bulk of the French press were anti this foreign destroyer and with Lalo perceived as “a Wagnerian Symphonist” the fate of his score was sealed before a note was played. Ironically the Prelude – Act 1 No.2 which opens the first suite Lalo extracted from the ballet is about as blatant a homage to Wagner and specifically the opening of Das Rheingold as it is possible to be. Contemporary critics found the music “noisy and intrusive” to quote Macdonald. The complete score – as far as I know – has never been recorded. Back in Monte Carlo in 1992 on the
Auvidis Valois label, conductor David Robertson added four previously unrecorded (ie not in the excerpted suites) movements and restored the original sequential order to create a 56 minute extended selection. To be honest, until a genuinely complete recording is made my sense is that the two suites – as offered by Järvi and Martinon – are perfectly adequate. To the two five movement suites – which do not follow the dramatic/original order – Järvi adds the attractive Valse de la cigarette – as does Butt with the RPO on ASV. Both suites are full of genuinely attractive and varied music and deserve to be much better known. Again the reality is that twenty minute suites seem to have little place in the modern concert hall – which is the audience’s loss.
Järvi follows his usual preference for flowing/fast tempi and unsentimental playing. In isolation and in its own right this works perfectly well and is a genuinely enjoyable listen. It is only when direct comparisons are made – especially with Martinon – that you realise there is greater light and shade, more nuance and elegance in this score than Järvi allows. Even the opening Wagner-lite Prelude has an unfussy getting-on-with-it forward movement that is not the whole story. Järvi takes 5:23 compared to Martinon’s 6:34 or Butt’s atmospherically grand 7:18. Elsewhere, I was reminded of Järvi’s penchant for the fast speeds which – for me – disfigured his complete Tchaikovsky ballets for Chandos in Bergen. These suites do tend to divide into exciting display dances and atmospheric interludes. Take the Danse des esclaves – Presto that closes the second suite – Järvi at just 1:28 sounds simply impatient for all the easy virtuosity of the playing. Certainly this not a ‘dancing’ tempo. Neither Butt or Martinon are vastly slower but neither do they sound so keen to get it over with. A combination of performance style and engineering impacts the Suite No.2 Pas de cymbals [track 11] where the recurring cymbal crash feels and sounds too aggressive for what is essentially a quite light-hearted dance. There are several attractively contrasted movements too notably the First Suite No.2 Sėrėnade [track 4] and especially the Second Suite No.3 Dolce far niente (La Sieste) [track 11]. The former is a good example of how Martinon, only a dozen or so seconds slower than Järvi, finds a more elegant lilt. A sense of sinuous lilting is present in the latter too and again direct comparison finds Järvi’s harp arpeggios to be just rather too impatient rather than letting this essentially rather simple melody unfurl. So for this ballet alone I would suggest that other versions offer greater empathy and subtlety although there is no doubting the fundamental quality of the playing here.
Although Lalo’s four movement symphony is relatively compact – just 24:58 in this performance it makes big powerful musical gestures. As might be imagined this suits Järvi’s approach better than the ballet. Only in the second movement Scherzo – vivace do I feel that Järvi sacrifices sparkling wit and grace for a rather more driven reading. De Almeida is a full minute slower than Järvi and Butt a good half minute. Both allow rather more air and ‘bounce’. Also this is another place where the acoustic of the Tallinn Concert Hall works against the spirit of the music. But then Järvi’s extra drive in the closing Allegro captures the stormy drama that surely Lalo sought. The most striking difference is the third movement Adagio with Järvi taking 5:51 to Butt’s 7:56. Here Butt raises shades of perhaps Parsifalian hushed power that certainly gives the music a noble grandeur that Järvi ignores. Almeida is interestingly almost exactly halfway between the two extremes which might be an ideal compromise if his Monte Carlo players were a match for either the Estonian NSO or Butt’s RPO – but I do like their unmistakeably Gallic sound…
Ultimately something of a guarded welcome for this well-played, generously filled disc. As has been my feeling with several of Järvi’s later recordings of unfamiliar repertoire, this feels like a very competent read-through of music that is not ‘in his bones’. Järvi’s strengths are remarkably present given his age but so are his interpretative preferences or limitations. As mentioned, listened to in isolation there is much to give pleasure – this is genuinely attractive music that is played with skill and considerable energy and the catalogue is not exactly over-filled with modern recordings. However, other performances do reveal depths and insights this new disc does not.
Nick Barnard
Previous review: John France (January 2024)
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