Let’s not mince words. This disc is a featureless non-happening. Having both the Fifth and Sixth symphonies together on a single disc sounds enticing, and indeed the playing time is very generous at nearly 80 minutes. But when the performances are so lacking in character, who cares? Sakari Oramo plays both symphonies in essentially the same way: quick and light. In the Fifth I have no tolerance for a performance that doesn’t understand that the brass and percussion need to blow the roof off of the concert hall in the first-movement coda, or in the climax of the slow movement. Someone should chain Oramo to a pair of speakers and force him to listen to Karajan, Järvi, Previn, Slatkin, Kuchar, or any one of half a dozen recordings in which the conductor understands that this music is about something, that it demands intensity, and impact. What on earth is wrong with this guy?
The Sixth offers more of the same. Where is the screaming dissonance at the start of the central Largo, or the weight in the low brass? The finale starts excitingly at such a swift tempo, but the music has no edge, no nerve, and neither the elegiac coda nor the closing pages bring any sense of culmination. What is it about this music that it attracts so many lousy recordings? I’m frankly baffled. Ever since Ozawa released his horrible complete cycle with a clearly uncommitted Berlin Philharmonic, Prokofiev has been fair game for “cold fish” conductors notably deficient in passion and guts. You can add this release to the pile.
Look: I admire this label, and the number of fine Finnish conductors is legion. Perhaps it’s a sign of a country’s artistic maturity that its musicians sound as dull and generic as anyone from anywhere, but I’m not sure that this is an achievement worth documenting. Has Oramo demonstrated a shred of sympathy for this music? Are orchestras lining up to hear his Prokofiev? For all I know maybe they are, but you sure don’t have to.
