With each reissue, this best-ever recording of Pictures at an Exhibition creeps closer to its country of origin (and Sony corporate headquarters). First it was Japan, now France. Can Iceland and Canada be far behind? How about the U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico? For my comments on this spectacularly played, recorded, and interpreted performance, just enter Q3741 in the search engine, where I review the Japanese issue. That disc coupled Pictures to Scheherazade, but this latest offering contains couplings arguably more apt, even if they already have appeared on various Sony Essential Classics reissues.
First (in a rare outing with the Philadelphia Orchestra) there’s Munch’s slam-bang romp through Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. It’s a typically direct, viscerally exciting performance with some adjusted percussion parts that lead you to wonder if Munch actually used Ormandy’s parts (though when he felt like it Munch could tinker with the best of them). Better still is Ormandy’s incendiary Bacchus et Ariane Suite No. 2. Here he gives Munch a run for his money in an explosive Bacchanal that features trumpets taken up an octave in the closing bars and some augmented percussion as well. Superb sound rounds out a great disc. Now if only it were available here…
