2 Comments

1. 

   Andrew Keener on December 28, 2021 at 10:43 am

   Col…I’m afraid I do find the slow movement more than a tad sleepy! Fedoseyev appears anything but proactive, so I suspect that rehearsal was detailed and painstaking. And what orchestral polish there is throughout. Look at/listen closely to the climax/recap of the first movement (13’17”) where Trombone 1 is obviously breathing at the end of every phrase (as he has to), but the gaps are bridged by his colleague so that there’s no break in the sound. That’s absolutely characteristic of these players’ unostentatious artistry. I couldn’t help remembering a programme on Radio 3 in the early 1970s in which a Japanese orchestra’s performance of the Eroica was followed by a scholarly, rather bemused discussion by (I think) Hans Keller and Robert Simpson. To them, and I daresay to us listening at that time, it was something of a curiosity, an experiment. How times change! So this 2017 Tchaik 4, if not Mravinsky-style visceral, is in its own way beautiful and sincere, the players clearly concentrating deeply and without ostentation.

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     canderson on December 28, 2021 at 11:47 am

     I too have doubts about the second movement, too slow and too sentimental. Thanks Andrew for your insights and reminiscence.

     BTW, to avoid any confusion, VF’s birthday is August 5 not “today”.

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