Oleg Caetani leads a wonderfully youthful, invigorating account of the First Symphony, adopting some daringly fast tempos both in the opening movement’s march music and in the trio of the scherzo. In both cases they work splendidly well, particularly as a prelude to a flowing account of the brooding Lento and a powerful rendering of the emotionally ambivalent finale. It’s an absolutely terrific performance, and you can really understand the audience’s enthusiastic response at the end. A few minor imperfections of ensemble and some performance noises (both here and in the Fifteenth Symphony) certainly don’t matter very much when the interpretation is so impulsive and enjoyable, but I would be remiss in my obligations if I didn’t point out that there isn’t quite the polish and precision that you can find in some of the better studio recordings.
The reading of the Fifteenth Symphony couldn’t be more different: it’s gravely thoughtful, though both the first movement and scherzo have plenty of the necessary spunk. But it’s the second and fourth movements that will linger in the memory, particularly the finale, which is taken unusually slowly but features some very beautiful violin playing of its long-limbed principal melody. Caetani builds the central passacaglia to a massive climax, with the low brass growling powerfully before the tam-tam blows the whole thing to smithereens.
The extremely natural engineering (in both stereo and multichannel formats) gives the coda a particularly luminous, ethereal quality that seems just what the composer ordered. Ordinarily I lean toward a swifter view of this finale, but there’s no question that Caetani makes an excellent case for his interpretation and has the orchestra willing to journey with him to hell and back. In sum, this is a fine release, one of the better issues in this series, ranking alongside Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 8, and 11. [9/11/2006]
