What a pleasant surprise this disc is. Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony, more properly a suite in five movements, is a charming romantic masterpiece that used to be quite popular, but seems to have vanished from the repertoire. Bernstein and Abravanel both recorded it, as did Previn. In the early digital era Lopez-Cobos, and of course Naxos, released it, but few others have taken it out for a spin in recent decades. Happily this is a very good performance, with a characterful treatment of the opening variations, a heartfelt garden scene, and a delightfully bouncy final dance. The piece really is extremely well crafted and it deserves to be popular once again.
The even more rarely heard Second Symphony post-dates the Rustic Wedding, but as an “abstract” work in traditional form it sounds markedly more conservative. Still, it has appealing ideas, and unlike so many of its contemporary works its thirty minutes pass the time quickly. Once again Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony play very well, and BIS’ engineers provide top-notch SACD sonics. If you’re curious about the Rustic Wedding Symphony, you have to own Bernstein’s Sony recording, but this one features superior sound and a more interesting coupling (Bernstein offers Dvorák and Smetana dances), making it well worth consideration also.
