Antoni Wit has made some marvelous recordings for Naxos, including a recent Mahler Eighth that must be counted one of the reference recordings of the work. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of his better efforts. If Wit has a weakness, it’s a fondness for leisurely tempos, something that Strauss–and this work in particular–certainly does not need. At more than 54 minutes, this surely is one of the slowest performances of An Alpine Symphony on disc. Any gain in audibility of detail as a result is offset by the want of sheer momentum. Just to drive home the point, one of the above reference recordings (Kord) plays for just 43 minutes, and the celebrated Kempe lasts 49, which is about average for the work.
The problems begin at Entry into the Wood, which lingers far too long in a steady decrescendo of tension. The various picturesque episodes that follow tend to hang fire, and Wit also reveals himself to be curiously insensitive to the music’s coloristic elements. Note the recessed harps and percussion in At the Waterfall, and the really unthreatening Dangerous Moments–though this also may be a function of the Weimar Orchestra’s timbral emphasis on strings and brass to the detriment of everyone else. The storm is particularly lame, losing steam at several points and rising to a singularly underwhelming climax. The engineering is honest–not necessarily a good thing in this case, since it reveals with singular clarity all that is missing from this performance. Not competitive.
