BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14; Le Roi Lear, Op. 4 – Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/ Marek Janowski, conductor – Pentatone multichannel SACD 5186-338, 66:22 [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
Marek Janowski occupies the Otto Klemperer Guest Conductor Chair of the Pittsburgh Symphony (this orchestra must have more endowed chairs than any in the country), and has released several discs with the orchestra on Pentatone. I am glad to see it—Pittsburgh often gets lost in the shadows of LA/Dudamel and SF/Tilson-Thomas and other sexier venues, but if the truth is told they might just have the best orchestra in the United States. Well, okay, there is Cleveland, I’ll grant you that. But they can hold their own easily with any other similar ensemble worldwide, and they deserve more credit for it. Section by section I can think of no orchestra more balanced and none with finer tonal qualities.
We can always use another Fantastic Symphony in Super Audio, don’t you think? There are only about six or seven of them—Jarvi on Telarc with Cincinnati, Davis (1974)/ Concertgebouw (also on Pentatone), Gergiev (don’t bother), Paray on Mercury, and my favorite, Munch (1954) on RCA, not in surround [but excellent two-channel SACD on the Living Stereo series…Ed.]; it hardly matters as it is such a smoker. There are others one might consider essential also, Muti/Philadelphia and Bernstein/NY (Sony) and Paris Orchestra (EMI), plus maybe Martinon. The thing has about 160 current recording available so if you can’t find one to your suiting then you just aren’t looking hard enough!
This one however, with the Jarvi, has the most modern sound, and this one is the best: wide, deep, excellent surround, with good impact. Janowski is somewhat more relaxed—he doesn’t go in for bombast, though the excesses of the PSO are there when the moment calls for them, and this is a clean and dramatically incisive reading. The middle movement has never sounded better, and though I have heard more exciting endings (yes I am one who loves a good race to the finish) the conductor measures it right and renders it satisfactorily. He is one of the very few who has dared to take Berlioz at his word in the articulation of the march rhythms in the “March to the Scaffold” movement and make the quarter notes legato and full instead of an interpreted staccato—it sounds weird at first, but then you realize that the movement doesn’t need to be beaten into your head, and the contrast is effective.
The beauties of the bonus King Lear Overture are many, this being one of the lesser of Berlioz’s bombasts, a nice contrast to the Symphony. All in all an outstanding issue, not supplanting the Munch but easily supplementing it.
— Steven Ritter
