Why a “2” for performance? I don’t know. It might as well be a “1”, but I guess the orchestra deserves some credit for following Carlo Ponti through the silly gyrations that comprise his “interpretation” of Pictures at an Exhibition. I won’t bore you with all the details: life is too short, and having just thrashed Simon Rattle’s ghastly Berlioz Symphonie fantastique at great length it’s simply too depressing to waste more time on yet another dismal performance of a repertory standard. Suffice it to say that The Great Gate of Kiev, with tempos pulled about like taffy, miserably underwhelming brass, and an ending that turns into a tam-tam concerto (much as I love that instrument, this is just too much), serves as the poster-child of podium misfeasance, and the rest is hardly better (Catacombs! I shudder to think about it!).
Everything else on the disc is even worse, to the extent that Ponti substitutes simple tedium for the mildly interesting perversity he sometimes shows in Pictures (A Night on the Bare Mountain is particularly dreary). If the disgracefully uncommitted orchestral playing reflects the players’ protest against Ponti’s artistic vacuousness, they have my sympathy, and I suppose earn their “2” rating. If not, shame on them. The engineering is good, but really, who cares?
