This Eloquence release contains about half of the program featured on the Mehta/Los Angeles Philharmonic “Double Decca” discs issued about two years ago. That set included the remainder of the Star Wars suite, as well as Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, in keeping with the collection’s “outer space” theme (although aside from its cinematic use, the Strauss work has little if anything to do with outer space–unless you think Nietzsche was an alien). The selection at hand includes Mehta’s exceptionally well done Planets, wherein he leads a bracing and ferocious rendition of Mars, with the Los Angeles brass (especially the prominent tuba) blazing like so many war cannons. In Venus, Mehta coaxes warm, sweet sounds from the high strings in the more ethereal passages. The same can be said for Neptune, with the angelic tones of the Los Angeles Master Chorale perfectly balanced in the aural picture. The end of Uranus features an arresting organ pedal tone, not as floor-rattling as Dutoit’s on his Montreal/Decca recording, but impressive nonetheless. Decca’s engineers make excellent use of the (unidentified) hall, giving the end of Saturn a room-filling impact.
The brief suite from John Williams’ score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind cuts from the opening “neutron” chord to the arrival of the mothership at the film’s end. This modernist-style music is right up Mehta’s alley, and he jumps at the chance to show off this “difficult” yet popular fare. (A fuller version is available from Charles Gerhardt and the National Philharmonic on RCA.) The Los Angeles Philharmonic pulls out the stops for Williams’ grand Star Wars main title, giving it a more Hollywood sound than its London counterpart did on the original soundtrack. It’s enough of a tempting tidbit to make you hunger for the entire suite, in which case you should go for the Double Decca instead. [5/21/2001]
