Volume 7 of Profil’s Günter Wand Edition finds the conductor traveling far afield from his standard repertoire (Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Bruckner). He’s mostly able to loosen up for this all-French music program, giving an energetic (if not freewheeling, à la Munch) account of Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, spoiled only by a rather squalid-sounding English horn. Wand brings merely adequate sturm und drang to Cherubini’s Beethovenian Anacréon Overture, but he provides an unexpectedly deft accompaniment for Ruggiero Ricci in Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3. Ricci’s probing, lucid rendition emphasizes the music’s underlying classical rigor, somewhat at the expense of its more emotional elements–particularly so in the stirring first movement.
Most interesting is The Bandar-Log from Charles Koechlin’s The Jungle Book, where Wand’s easy embrace of the music’s “modern” language is surprising coming from a conductor so steeped in the classical/romantic tradition. Listen to how he leaps into Koechlin’s seemingly chaotic writing, with its brilliant, snarlingly orchestrated depictions of wild animals. On balance, the Cologne Radio Symphony’s playing is solid and well-groomed–with nice work from the brass in the Berlioz. The 1970s radio productions are aptly reverberant, though not without the typical dynamic constriction. So, while none of these performances can be considered definitive, this release will hold appeal for Günter Wand fans.
