Walter Weller drives the outer movements of the Fourth Symphony hard–so hard in fact that the players have trouble articulating the notes with the necessary distinctness. Consider, for example, the central development of the finale, where the antiphonal exchanges between horns and trumpets are all but lost in the blur. It’s always tempting to play this music too quickly, and orchestras, seeing the welter of eighth notes in syncopated rhythm, have a tendency to rush anyway (I can attest to this from experience). On the other hand, in the trio of the scherzo the lyrical main theme sounds stiff and stodgy, with Weller slowing down precisely when the music requires an effortless flow. The high point of the performance is the slow movement, which has all of the necessary dark gravity and some finely detailed phrasing from the orchestra’s wind section.
The couplings, on the other hand, are very good. Estampes, Martinu’s last major orchestral work, is a dark and dreamy piece, and Weller captures its impressionist atmosphere well without ever lapsing into stasis (though the central movement is a touch slow, comparatively). Le Départ comes from the “opera-film” The Three Wishes, a modernist work dating from Martinu’s Parisian period. The music features the motoric rhythms and edgy harmony of his early orchestral pieces, with the influences of Roussel and Honegger very present–yet never stifling. It’s good to see the piece getting some play, but I doubt that will be enough to recommend this recording to any but the most die-hard Martinu fans, given that the remaining works are readily available in as good or better performances. The sonics are decent, with the orchestral piano particularly well-caught, but still less then ideally clear.
