ความคิดเห็นที่ 1
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Realtime/01Feb2008_real004.php
A celebration of the human spirit
PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, Op. 100; Lt. Kije Suite, Op. 60. Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paavo Jarvi. Telarc
UNG-AANG TALAY
Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony is a big, generous, Romantic piece that became popular with concert audiences right from the time of its first performance under the composer's baton in 1945. Koussevitsky had a hit with it when he gave the American premiere with the Boston Symphony Orchestra a short time later and, like Bartok's contemporaneous Concerto for Orchestra, it makes friends quickly with listeners who resist Modernism but want to find 20th-century works that they can love.
In recent decades, Prokofiev's symphonies have been overshadowed by his compatriot Shostakovich's. Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is one of the most played and recorded of all modern symphonic works, while Prokofiev's Fifth, until quite recently, appeared less frequently on concert programmes than it did some decades back.
The two Fifths match each other in interesting ways. Both were reactionary works in the context of their composers' earlier music. Shostakovich had been attacked in Pravda, evidently by Stalin himself, for the "formalism" of the music he had been writing during the previous years. He quickly stashed away the stylistically adventurous Fourth Symphony he had been working on and produced a Fifth, offering it as an apology in reply to "just criticism". The expansive, tuneful, accessible style may have been loaded, as critics have claimed, with hidden sarcasms and laments, but it went down very well with officials and quickly entered the mainstream repertoire.
Prokofiev seems to have abandoned the avant-garde style he cultivated in Paris during the 1920s by choice when he returned to the Soviet Union, and his gift as the greatest Russian melodist since Tchaikovsky blossomed luxuriantly there in the full-length ballet, Romeo and Juliet. It is also in its full glory in his final three symphonies.
Although the Fifth was a wartime work, he offered it, as Shostakovich had ostensibly presented his own, as a celebration of the human spirit. Prokofiev published an article in Moscow at the time of the work's premiere in which he explained, "I wished to glorify man as free and happy, his mighty strength, his noble spirit. I would not say that I searched for this theme, it was born in me and required expression."
Loaded words, perhaps, considering the historical moment in which he wrote them and the sardonic tone for which so much of his other music is famous. And especially so in view of the deeply sombre tone of the symphony that followed it, his masterpiece in the form in which he, like Shostakovich in his own Sixth, is obviously contemplating very dark matters.
But if we take Prokofiev at his word, this new recording of the Fifth Symphony by Paavo Jarvi conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at times realises his intentions eloquently. I have never heard a performance, including the classic accounts by Koussevitsky, Karajan and Szell, in which the opening passage has the the spring-like freshness that Jarvi brings to it here. His timing for the first movement is almost exactly the same as Karajan's, but he begins slowly, almost languidly, with the undercurrent of restiveness that Karajan and most other conductors (including his father, Neeme Jarvi) maintains right from the outset much less palpable.
This mood prevails throughout the first movement, even as Jarvi increases the tempo before 2:00, giving the music a flow that seems impervious to the ominousness that lurks in the prominent bass sonorities. The haunting tune first heard at 2:45 sings quite happily, largely free of the Kurt Weill-like bitter-sweet tone that some other conductors, including Jarvi Sr, have found in it.
The approach works very well throughout the first movement, uncovering lyrical touches, especially in some of the wind parts, that are sometimes muted in sterner interpretations. But as the symphony moves on to the Allegro marcato second movement, the relaxed manner begins to take a toll. The marcato playing of the string ostinato that opens it, and the crescendo and diminuendo that kick the music off, are played down by Jarvi in a way that drains the music of energy and forward thrust. This movement needs to have an edge on it that is missing here.
And miscalculations like this also undermine the majestic Adagio. Like the corresponding Largo of the Sixth Symphony, this movement develops long-lined, meltingly beautiful themes reminiscent of the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet, into a long meditation that is shattered by a violent musical eruption. The growing tension leading up to the explosive climax doesn't develop with anything like the inevitability here that it does in Koussevitsky and especially Karajan's performances, and the contour is the movement is marred.
The performance comes back on track with an ingratiating performance of the concluding Allegro giocoso (with the ambiguity of the concluding bars brought out well), but as a whole Paavo Jarvi's account doesn't quite succeed. The first movement is a pleasure to listen to as an alternative view of music that is often played quite differently, but the two that followed couldn't make me momentarily forget Karajan et al.
The performance of the Lt Kije Suite never takes fire. This is light music from a film soundtrack, of course, but it is full of colour, humour and, in the conclusion, a kind of nostalgic ache. Little of that comes across here. The playing by the Cincinnati musicians is excellent, though, as is Telarc's recorded sound.
George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra made a memorable recording of Lt Kije that until recently was available on a Sony bargain disc, paired with Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite. It is out of print now, but copies may still be available on the Internet.
จากคุณ :
BlueWhiteRed  
- [
1 ก.พ. 51 09:55:24
]
|
|
|
