Seckerson's Choice: Tchaikovsky Symphonies
It may seem strange to say of a composer of Tchaikovsky’s stature that to this day he remains misunderstood and even underrated - but sometimes the most unlikely statements conceal a deeper truth and in Tchaikovsky’s case it’s a question, I think, of perception. The splashy romantic of the ‘1812 Overture’, ‘Swan Lake’, the ‘Nutcracker’, and so many other crowd-pleasers was also a committed classicist whose adoration of Mozart betrayed a deep-seated belief that the classical and the romantic could happily co-exist and that the one could and would indeed influence and heighten the effect of the other. For all their innovation and creative daring the symphonies remain rooted in classical tradition so that the best performances are often those which achieve the most dramatic interaction between those two worlds.
Read more…I came of age with Igor Markevitch’s exciting and enduring cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra and I would be happy to live with any or all of them. For the purpose of this list and in the interests of variety I have opted for two of those performances: his characterful take on the Third Symphony “Polish” and his scorching account of the fatalistic Fourth which pretty much wipes the floor with most of the competition in terms of both its rigour and its dynamism. The LSO on cracking form. One might characterise Markevitch as a highly focused and disciplined Mravinsky but for all the very personal and, yes, even quirky “old world” eccentricities of Mravinsky’s classic stereo recordings of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth symphonies (this is Russian romanticism of the most traditional kind) I have never to this day heard a more electrifying account of the popular Fifth. Mravinsky almost redefines the phrase ‘tempo-rubato’ with his more excessive flights of fancy (and there are many) but such is his fierce conviction - and that of his Leningrad players - that the effect is as breathtaking as it can be irritating.
For the lucid and enchanting and very lyric First Symphony “Winter Daydreams” I have opted for the very young Michael Tilson Thomas (one of his first recordings) who finds all sorts of pale and interesting colours in the piece and whose account of the horn-led slow movement finds real kinship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s pedigree in French music. Vladimir Jurowski’s very Russian “Little Russian” with the London Philharmonic (recorded live) points up Tchaikovsky’s classicism with verve and relish.
For the great Sixth Symphony “Pathetique” I grew up with Ferenc Fricsay’s magnificent account with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1960s and to this day I can recall the reviewer’s words in Gramophone Magazine saying that in his view it was twice as beautiful, twice as exciting, and twice as memorable as any other account in the catalogue. I can still buy into that view. But sonically it now shows its age and an astonishing reassessment of the piece has just arrived from a source until now quite unknown to me. Teodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna turn in a high-intensity, nerve-shredding performance of the Sixth which is emotionally and physically about as close as you’ll get now to a first-time encounter with this astonishing piece. A recorded classic is born, no question.
The extraordinary ‘Manfred Symphony’ (coming as it did between the Fourth and Fifth) must be included and for this I’ve opted for currency with Vasily Petrenko’s much-lauded version with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic on Naxos where the vividly pictorial (is there a better example of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral deftness than the mercurial scherzo?) vies with the rigorously symphonic in a piece as notable for its originality as for its thrills. Lord Byron and Tchaikovsky (not to mention Berlioz) suddenly kindred spirits.
- Edward Seckerson