These performances are very well played, very well recorded, and very badly conducted. Don’t get me wrong: Vänskä gets exactly what he wants, and has the Minnesota Orchestra operating at a typically high standard–I hesitate to say “world class” because the orchestra, during its recently concluded labor dispute, would have us believe that this is merely a function of individual salary levels rather than artistic achievement as an ensemble, so let’s just say that they sound very good and leave it at that. No, the problem lies with Vänskä, who left Minnesota as a direct result of said labor dispute. On evidence here, it won’t be much of a loss, and I hate to say it because heretofore I have admired him very much (and may still do so in other repertoire).
Vänskä is an acknowledged expert Sibelius conductor, but on this disc, as in his previous release of Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5, familiarity seems to have bred contempt. Looking desperately for something interesting to do with this very popular music, he has entered the “noodling” phase of his interpretive career. Consider the First Symphony, which can be summarized as essentially very fast, then very slow, for no particular reason. The principal theme of the first movement goes so quickly that the brass cannot articulate the notes. The climax of the Andante, on the other hand, starts off at a perverse crawl, before gradually gathering the necessary speed. The finale whizzes along in the quick bits, and as in the first movement the result fails to convey the necessary weight and power that Sibelius clearly intended, while the lyrical second subject trudges along droopily. The result is a caricature, a joke, neither exciting nor provocative. It’s just bad.
The Fourth Symphony goes a bit better, although the first movement drags–not so much on account of the tempo as due to the relentlessly heavy, legato articulation which seems to hold the music back just as it wants to press forward. I have never been fully convinced by Vänskä’s very slow view of the third movement, and again, he could have pulled it off (as he did in his previous, Lahti recording) with sharper accents, bolder dynamics, and a firmer sense of rhythm undergirding the music’s principal, ascending theme. The scherzo sounds just about perfect, and the finale also goes very well until its climax which, for all its transparency of texture, never achieves the cataclysmic intensity that Sibelius surely expected. Coming from a seasoned Sibelian like Vänskä, this sort of narcissistic, interpretive navel-gazing is simply incomprehensible, and deplorable.
Fascinatingly this disc, which evidently has had a very spotty domestic release (I had to order my copy from the UK; Amazon.com does not stock it, but Akivmusic.com does), has been nominated for a Grammy. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins, since these things are decided by voting blocks within NARAS and, particularly as regards classical music, no one has to listen to the performance to vote for the disc in question. And I am not even going to debate the issue of whether or not those who do listen have the slightest ability to judge meaningfully what they are hearing. Somehow it seems fitting: this disc has all the necessary credentials for greatness, provided that you never actually listen to it.
