Goossens in Cincinnati, Volume 2 = VAUGHAN WILIAMS: Symphony No. 2; RESPIGHI: The Fountains of Rome – Cincinnati Sym.Orch. /Eugene Goossens – Historic-Recordings

by | Mar 26, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

Goossens in Cincinnati, Volume 2 = VAUGHAN WILIAMS: Symphony No. 2 in G Minor “London”; RESPIGHI: Fountains of Rome – Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Eugene Goossens – Historic-Recordings HRTCD 00071, 53:20 [www.historic-recordings.co.uk] ****:
Between 1931 and 1946 Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, having succeeded Fritz Reiner. Among the several fine achievements Goossens realized in the recording studio–along with his Tchaikovsky “Little Russian” Symphony–stands his 19-20 February 1941 inscription of the London Symphony of Vaughan Williams (1913), a kind of affective musical portrait of a great city from one of its admirers. In the opening movement, we hear an evocation of the Westminster chimes. After a vigorously moody opening movement, the second movement Lento–supposedly an evocation of Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon set as variations on three themes–employs effective scoring among the woodwinds and viola to convey a briskly cool day in environs one loves.
The Scherzo presumably serves as a fluttery nocturne, the figures urging forward in gusts, at first fugato and then in a decisively folkish style.  The sheer transparency of the Cincinnati strings and brass impress us as the equal of anything the orchestras in Philadelphia or New York could have produced in this era. The last two movements form a grave march and its epilogue, an homage to the passing of a lifestyle, even as Vaughan Williams utilizes cyclic principles to revivify elements from the first movement. The misty Epilogue quietly accepts Fate and the ravages of Time as inevitable. Dedicated to composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) who died by sniper fire at the Battle of the Somme, the music occasionally utters nobly tragic thoughts about mortality. The seamless account by Goossens sets a bar that few conductors could match, and side joins by H-R (from RCA DM-916) remain undetectable until a bit of swish in the final bars.
Respighi’s The Fountains of Rome (1916) is virtually contemporaneous with the Vaughan Williams symphony, although the Goossens inscription dates from 14 February 1946. This performance–and those by De Sabata and Toscanini–loom large in the pantheon of fine renditions of this pure landscape music. The Triton Fountain in the Morning episode sparkles in a most Lisztian fashion; perhaps we should recall that Respighi studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov. As the music mounts into a Roman frenzy, we detect elements of the Richard Strauss or Wagnerian pomp in the heady mix. A diaphanous light suffuses the Trevi Fountain at Noon. Nostalgia and mystery permeate the Villa Medici Fountain at Night, inundated with bird calls and Mediterranean forest murmurs. The soft last page places a velvet glove on the magic.
— Gary Lemco
 

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