Reissue CD Reviews
Paul Paray, The Concert Hall Recordings = LISZT: Mephisto Waltz; Les Preludes; Mazeppa; SAINT-SAENS: Dance Macabre; Le Rouet d'Omphale; DUKAS: The Sorceror’s Apprentice; BIZET: Carmen Suite; RAVEL: Alborada del Gracioso; La Valse - Paul Paray - Scribendum
Paray made the Detroit Symphony America's "First French Orchestra."
Published on October 06, 2005
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Paul Paray, The Concert Hall Recordings = LISZT: Mephisto
Waltz; Les Preludes; Mazeppa; SAINT-SAENS: Dance Macabre; Le Rouet
d’Omphale; DUKAS: The Sorceror’s Apprentice; BIZET: Carmen Suite;
RAVEL: Alborada del Gracioso; La Valse - Orchestre National de l‚Opera
de Monte-Carlo/ Paul Paray
Scribendum SC 017 69:25; 50:26 (Distrib. Silver Oak) ****:
Inscribed c. 1958-1967, this two-disc set does ample justice to the virtuoso style of French composer-conductor Paul Paray (1886-1979), whose tenure with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is still recalled with affectionate pride. Monte Carlo, however, was Paray’s first home, especially after his tenure with the Municipal Orchestra and his work at Concerts Colonne. Had not WWII intervened, Paray may well have been Toscanini’s successor at the New York Philharmonic. As it stands, Paray still enjoys credit for having transformed the Detroit Symphony into America’s “first French orchestra,” although Koussevitzky certainly imbued a French sound into the Boston Symphony.
What is compelling about these Concert Hall discs, despite their often fatuous or missing recording data, are the intensity of sound and orchestral projection Paray elicits from his players. The Liszt pieces, bravura works all, easily rival Karajan and Dorati in their respective spheres. The opening Mephisto Waltz is all business, lithe and sinewy like a tiger possessed. The Mazeppa, by whose Karajan recording I have reaped colossal auditory pleasure for years, sounds quite a finesse job, with blazing brass and strings, the same facile triple-tonguing in the trumpet coda. Les Preludes has grandeur and panache, even the same flexible continuity I hear in the greats like Fricsay, Furtwaengler, and Mengelberg.
The Saint-Saens Omphale Spining Wheel proceeds with the breezy but monolithic stature Beecham accorded it. The colors and sleek attacks in Dukas might have collectors guessing Stokowski or Mitropoulos. Listen to that bassoon! The battery and triangle shimmer in a way most surreal, and the cumulative effect had me thinking the word “throes” to describe my engagement. Dare I say, per expectation, the extended suite from Carmen vibrates with pageantry and tragic intimations. Paray favors those little hints of pesant phrasing and dynamics that add a girth that too many other interpreters pass over glibly. Our bassoon friend is back in pungent form for Les Dragons d’Alcala. Once again, we out-Beecham Beecham. The Ravel selections throb, even hover, in almost predatory expectation, the way Paray anticipates harmonic and textural transitions. Again, is Mitropoulos so far away from Paray’s ravishing colors in the Alborada? The concluding La Valse glides to its inevitable explosion with passing homage to the Viennese models which inspired it, until from its own centripetal acceleration it splinters into the fragments of a vanished, romantic ethos.
--Gary Lemco
Scribendum SC 017 69:25; 50:26 (Distrib. Silver Oak) ****:
Inscribed c. 1958-1967, this two-disc set does ample justice to the virtuoso style of French composer-conductor Paul Paray (1886-1979), whose tenure with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is still recalled with affectionate pride. Monte Carlo, however, was Paray’s first home, especially after his tenure with the Municipal Orchestra and his work at Concerts Colonne. Had not WWII intervened, Paray may well have been Toscanini’s successor at the New York Philharmonic. As it stands, Paray still enjoys credit for having transformed the Detroit Symphony into America’s “first French orchestra,” although Koussevitzky certainly imbued a French sound into the Boston Symphony.
What is compelling about these Concert Hall discs, despite their often fatuous or missing recording data, are the intensity of sound and orchestral projection Paray elicits from his players. The Liszt pieces, bravura works all, easily rival Karajan and Dorati in their respective spheres. The opening Mephisto Waltz is all business, lithe and sinewy like a tiger possessed. The Mazeppa, by whose Karajan recording I have reaped colossal auditory pleasure for years, sounds quite a finesse job, with blazing brass and strings, the same facile triple-tonguing in the trumpet coda. Les Preludes has grandeur and panache, even the same flexible continuity I hear in the greats like Fricsay, Furtwaengler, and Mengelberg.
The Saint-Saens Omphale Spining Wheel proceeds with the breezy but monolithic stature Beecham accorded it. The colors and sleek attacks in Dukas might have collectors guessing Stokowski or Mitropoulos. Listen to that bassoon! The battery and triangle shimmer in a way most surreal, and the cumulative effect had me thinking the word “throes” to describe my engagement. Dare I say, per expectation, the extended suite from Carmen vibrates with pageantry and tragic intimations. Paray favors those little hints of pesant phrasing and dynamics that add a girth that too many other interpreters pass over glibly. Our bassoon friend is back in pungent form for Les Dragons d’Alcala. Once again, we out-Beecham Beecham. The Ravel selections throb, even hover, in almost predatory expectation, the way Paray anticipates harmonic and textural transitions. Again, is Mitropoulos so far away from Paray’s ravishing colors in the Alborada? The concluding La Valse glides to its inevitable explosion with passing homage to the Viennese models which inspired it, until from its own centripetal acceleration it splinters into the fragments of a vanished, romantic ethos.
--Gary Lemco
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