Well what do you know? Pletnev finally gets one right! After what probably is the single longest and most consistently disappointing string of recordings in recent discographic history for a major label (well, maybe not; Haitink and Abbado are still at it and Thielemann’s coming on strong), here’s a completely recommendable release that shows everyone involved on top form (with one tiny exception). Sure, this isn’t difficult music to conduct, but that plays to Pletnev’s strengths because ultimately he doesn’t really know how, and never has. Yes, he does get up there and wave his hands around, but his interpretations, at least compared to his exceptionally free and intuitive piano playing, always suffer from the rigid inexpressiveness of an artist unable to communicate to his band much beyond speed. That makes him most reliable in ballet music, which has a strong rhythmic foundation permitting him basically to set a tempo and then let the orchestra do its thing.
In the Carmen Ballet, the strings play with admirable crispness and intensity, while the recording balances the percussion for maximum clarity and impact, especially the numerous harp-like passages for vibraphone. One exception, as advertised: the xylophone player apparently wimps out in the episode based on the Farandole from L’Arlésienne, where he declines to double the strings on the tune’s final reprise, instead stealing in craftily at the very end (Pletnev’s fault of course: at this frantic tempo, who can blame him?). Nevertheless it’s great to hear the final appearance of the “fate” motive for once capped by the thunderous crashes on the tam-tam that Shchedrin intended, and the strings in the Second Intermezzo sound positively luminous.
The two Concertos for Orchestra add considerably to the disc’s attractions. No. 1, a delicious piece of soft-core musical pornography subtitled “Naughty Limericks” also more or less plays itself, as one sleazily hilarious episode follows another. No. 2, “The Chimes”, is a more serious work, quite creepy in places, evocative of its title in a way that might bring to mind the more alarming or funereal aspects of Rachmaninov’s choral symphony The Bells, though of course the idiom is much more harmonically acerbic. Again, this isn’t music that requires much more than good discipline from the ensemble, and the Russian National Orchestra is nothing if not well schooled. Intelligent programming, well played, well recorded–an easy recommendation.
