The London Symphony Orchestra’s proprietary label continues to issue live recordings featuring Colin Davis in music that either he, or the orchestra, or both have recorded many times previously. And it so happens in this case, as in quite a few others, that all of the earlier versions are demonstrably better. The orchestra can boast three excellent previous recordings, under Kertesz (Decca), Dorati (Mercury Living Presence), and Rowicki (Philips). Davis first did this symphony for Philips with the Concertgebouw, where it formed the weakest member in his survey of Dvorák’s last three symphonies (finest was the Seventh). Over time, it’s only gotten weaker.
In a nutshell, the current performance has a great first movement, with an especially fiery and powerful development section. The second movement begins well, but quickly loses energy in its second half thanks (as before) to Davis’ ponderous tempo for the ominous minor-key section. The lovely third movement waltz receives its most rhythmically dead, flat-footed performance on disc. Despite some nice touches of string portamento (it’s making a comeback, in case you hadn’t noticed), Davis’ conducting sounds lumpish, mannered, and simply too slow: the music loses energy as it goes. Then again, the movement’s coda sounds wonderful. Go figure. The finale opens well and continues excitingly through its big central climax (I especially like the col legno touches in the viola accompaniment to the march-like variation). But once things quiet down, Davis starts fussing with music that, in its deliberate repetitiousness and simplicity needs above all to flow purposefully to the end. His coda never quite regains the energy of the opening, and the final timpani flam (daDUM) fails to cut through the texture (nothing new in that, though).
Sonically, the recording sounds a bit dry and lacking in depth, which makes the string playing less than alluring and quickly robs the instruments of color and impact at lower dynamic levels. At 39 minutes, this makes for lousy value too. Someone is paying for these productions. Is there no music that these artists have yet to record that would constitute a far better investment of everyone’s time and money?
