The “Sinfonia Antartica” was a weak link in Andrew Davis’ last Vaughan Williams cycle, for Teldec. This newcomer is even worse. Of course, Davis knows how to pace the music: fluidly, with no dearth of forward momentum, especially in the slowish fourth movement. However, there’s much more to a good performance that apt tempos. The interpretation lacks just about everything else: accent, dynamic range, and most of all, an ear for those hard, glittering colors that make the music sound appropriately “icy.” The end of the first movement doesn’t feel triumphant, while the third movement “Landscape” is just grey and faded.
A good bit of the problem stems from poor engineering, further compressing the music’s dynamic range, muddying bass lines, and placing the brass and percussion in the distance. This also affects the textures and timbres in the already thick Double Piano Concerto to a distressing degree. Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier play well enough, but again the whole affair turns unacceptably dull. It’s very disappointing coming after Davis’ superb release of the Ninth Symphony plus Job, just a few months ago.
Oh yes, Baritone Roderick Williams pops up for what is optimistically called Vaughan Williams’ “Four Last Songs”–uninteresting pieces given an undeserved significance by the ubiquitous Anthony Payne, always on hand to complete or orchestrate works that the great English composers never actually wrote. Calling these vanishing slight songs “Four Last” only forces a comparison that makes Vaughan Williams look really, really bad. A waste.
