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This is the real
thing -- an audiophile-quality recording of first-rank musicians playing music that
matters. What's not to love? The performances are impassioned, the playing is
incandescent, and the sound is spectacular in the best sense of the word.
Well, maybe you won't find yourself quite as taken with the
Boulez Notations as with the rest of the material here, but part of that is
intentional -- the man just doesn't want to write cuddly melodies. But it is solid
and, as an exploration of the tonal possibilities of the orchestra, it's pretty amazing.
The stars here, of course, are Le Sacre and La
Mer -- pieces that would seemingly inhabit different realms of the orchestral cosmos,
since we normally think of the Stravinsky as frantic and the Debussy as calm and soothing.
Yet, Barenboim, as Boulez did some thirty years ago, hears a level of passion in La Mer
that strips away any vestige of placidity. After all, the sea is powerful and merciless --
and one can clearly hear that in this recording.
Le Sacre is a sonic masterpiece. It's fierce music,
with colliding chords, clashing keys, slashing rhythms and overwhelming orchestration. It
also has moments of fierce beauty -- such as the plaintive opening melody, carried by a
bassoon in its upper register, that inexorably leads to the pulsating, stamping rhythm of
the dance of the adolescents. From this point on, the work teeters between
breathless ostinatos and sharp orchestral chords until the orchestra -- as powerful
and weighty as a locomotive -- thunders into the dance of the earth, where tympani
and bass drum wage a battle of the rhythms (four against three), forcing the orchestra to
a feverish climax of swirling strings, heavy brass chords and wild filigree from the
horns. And then, building on a soft, gentle melody that gets passed from string to string
to string to horn to oboe, and the orchestra winds up its huge engine, driving the tempo
and the volume to incredible levels that end in the abandoned ritual dance of the
chosen one -- one of the wildest, most rhythmically complex, most violent passages of
music in the canon. This is the payoff of the whole piece, and Barenboim and the CSO
capture the violence and barely controlled frenzy as never before on record. This is the
stuff that demo records are made of: It’s a performance that can stand tall next to
Boulez's 1969 Cleveland Orchestra recording of the work, it's that good -- and the
recording itself is far superior.
La Mer doesn't have the savage intensity of Le
Sacre, but like the Stravinsky, it is more concerned with the play of rhythmic and
harmonic fragments against one another than it is with conventional melody. Barenboim and
Chicago don't give us a placid surface -- or even a playful one with sunlight sparking off
the wavelets. Their sea is deep and dark and restless, capable of immense drama and power.
It such a different reading from the conventional one that it almost requires a complete
re-evaluation of the work. This, of course, is a sign of great art, as is the fact that this
interpretation proves so satisfying.
Sonically, this disc is a marvel, from its portrayal of
Orchestra Hall's vast acoustic to the sound of one of America's Big Five orchestras living
up to its potential. This is what a great orchestra sounds like, whether hushed
with awe, as in the opening bars of Le Sacre, or in full fortissimo stamping out
the brutal rhythms and precise polyrythms of the ritual dance itself. Sound like
this is probably what hooked you on hi-fi in the first place. Don't wait for someone else
to proclaim it a classic: Enjoy it now.
Aw heck, be a really nice guy and give it to an audiophile
friend for Christmas. You better believe he'll be good to you next year.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
