JOSEF SUK: Asrael, Symphony for Large orchestra in C minor, Op. 27 – Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Ashkenazy – Ondine multichannel SACD ODE 1132-5, 61:32 ***** [Distr. by Universal]:
Recorded just last year, this is the only SACD version of a massive late-Romantic symphony which could easily stand beside those of Bruckner and Mahler. Completed in 1906, the work was engendered by the demise of the two people closest to Suk – fellow composer Dvorak and his daughter Otylka, who had been Suk’s wife for only a few years. The result from these great blows was an hour-log highly emotional work of five movements named for the Angel of Death, Asrael.
A ‘death motif’ is used in the first movement, and the second Andante movement makes use of a theme similar to the main theme of Dvorak’s Requiem Mass. However, the Asrael Symphony is highly original, not showing a strong Dvorak influence. As contrast to the extremely tragic portions of the symphony, there are a number of passages of great sweetness and lyricism. Suk stated that in writing the symphony he “was saved by music.”
Vladimir Ashkenazy has been very busy as a conductor rather than piano soloist in the last several years, although one of his other Ondine recordings has been Rautavaara’s Third Piano Concerto, which Ashkenazy commissioned as a work he could conduct from the piano. He was chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, where he must have conducted this important work. The hi-res surround sonics of the live recording are exemplary, and as perfectly suited to Suk’s music as the many SACDs of both Bruckner and Mahler symphonies have proven.
– John Sunier
