The more boisterous variations, particularly Troyte and G.R.S., erupt with phenomenal energy, but there’s no lack of delicacy in, say, the beautifully realized accompaniment to C.A.E., or the charming Dorabella. Within the context of basically swift tempos, Järvi offers a reading of high contrast. It will be interesting to see how those grey worthies react to this version, which is no less appealing and quite different.
The label’s earlier release, featuring Zinman and Baltimore, surprisingly earned a rosette from that paragon of the English critical establishment, the Penguin Guide. Telarc has done itself proud with Elgar’s Enigma Variations. You will hear things in this performance that no one else realizes in quite the same way, and that makes listening a constant source of joy. “Moonlight” is the essence of cool stillness, and the final “Storm” erupts at an unusually measured tempo, the better to give the timpani and brass a chance to really articulate their ferocious rhythms. “Sunday Morning” features a daringly quick tempo, but the Cincinnati players rise effortlessly to the challenge. “Dawn” never drags but still preserves a certain dreaminess in its treatment of the brass chorales. The Four Sea Interludes, which Britten never actually recorded in their concert versions, also reveal a strong sense of the conductor’s individuality while being played as persuasively as anyone ever has. This permits the music to make its didactic points without a trace of pedantry, and the final fugue combines raw excitement with exceptional textural clarity to an amazing degree. Witness, for example, the atmospheric variations for horns, or harp, or the gutsy rhythms underpinning the violins. Järvi insures that you hear the piece whole–but more to the point, and also like the composer, he does it by paying great attention not just to the timbre of the highlighted instrument but equally to Britten’s sensitive and imaginatively colored accompaniments. Often the work breaks up into individual bits, sounding too much as though the original narration is missing between the variations. It has similar energy and freshness, allied to similar continuity and flow. Järvi without question offers the finest Young Person’s Guide since Britten’s own. So for the purposes of this review, I am limiting my comments to the standard stereo release. It’s remarkable what variable results SACD technology still produces, even in the hands of the most experienced labels. In regular and SACD stereo the engineering is indeed stellar, but the multichannel version is curiously low-level and diffuse. Good as the sound is, and despite Telarc’s reputation for same, this disc is not noteworthy primarily for its sonics. Naxos: 8557196.This is a spectacular recording, not just in the “blockbuster” sense of containing four big, splashy orchestral works, extremely well recorded, but also because Paavo Järvi brings a real point of view to music that many listeners (with good reason) assume has been done to death. London Symphony Orchestra Steuart Bedford (conductor). It is worth noting that there is also a fifth ‘interlude’, a Passacaglia, which is often played alongside them. They have arguably become more popular than the opera itself. By way of contrast from the often tense vocal machinations, four orchestral interludes pepper the score and, long before the first night, Britten had decided that they should stand alone, too. Having left war-struck Britain in 1939, he chanced on George Crabbe’s poem The Borough in a second-hand bookshop in Los Angeles, and started transforming it into what would become only his second opera, ready for its premiere in 1945.īack in the UK, he launched the rebirth of English opera with the story of the tragic, lonely fisherman, who was both cantankerous and misunderstood. The seeds for Peter Grimes were sown not on these shores, but in Los Angeles. It certainly marked a revival of post-war English opera.
Despite reports that Benjamin Britten paced nervously at the back of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre when Peter Grimes was first performed, this work is now regarded by many as the greatest English opera ever written.