This final disc in Christoph Eschenbach’s Roussel cycle turns out to be disappointing. It contains the composer’s most famous work, the Third Symphony, in a live performance that is dully recorded and rhythmically not quite as together as it must be. This is particularly true of the first movement, which comes across as unusually clunky and underpowered, followed by an adagio whose heaviness hardly bodes well for sustaining its 10-minute length. It’s all the more surprising given the excellence of some of the other performances in this series, particularly the Second Symphony. Perhaps everyone just had an off-night, but if so, this should not have been the performance chosen for release.
The Spider’s Feast, here given complete, is much better, both as sound and performance, with Eschenbach and the orchestra capturing Roussel’s diaphanous scoring well. But it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to acquire this work wedded to a dreary Third Symphony when you can have a sensational recording of it alongside an equally splendid complete Bacchus et Ariane from Tortelier on Chandos. And if you want the symphony, Bernstein on DG is just about unbeatable, or try the recent Naxos release featuring Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
