Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séquin is a talented artist, as witnessed by his stunning recording of the Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony for ATMA (type Q9855 in Search Reviews). This version of Nino Rota’s ballet suite from La Strada also is exceptional, but it worked rather better in the company of other Rota pieces as originally issued, rather than here, in tandem with Weill’s Second Symphony. This latter performance is simply not on the same level, not so much because of any major defects in terms of playing or interpretation, but because the cavernous sonics rob the music of its necessary “sec” quality, blurring the rhythms and undermining the sardonic bite of the outer movements. Even in the Largo the excess resonance makes the rhythm difficult to hear clearly, and so it’s impossible to tell if the lack of precision is a function of the engineering, the playing, or a little of both. By all means get the Rota, a delightful work that’s shamefully neglected in concert, but skip this particular configuration.
