Having written positively about Măcelaru’s symphony cycles with the Orchestre National de France of Enescu (DG, review) and Saint-Saëns (Warner Classics, review), I was keen to hear this new Rachmaninoff cycle with the WDR Sinfonieorchester.
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The savagery of the first symphony’s opening has power and precision but lacks the savagery Petrenko (EMI/Warner Classics), Nézet-Séguin (DG) and especially Ashkenazy (Decca) generate. Yet I was soon won over but the sheer beauty of the playing and Măcelaru’s sensitive phrasing. He uses a generous amount of rubato without ever seeming wayward; one never loses track of the music’s architecture. Impressive too, is the unanimity of articulation, weight and color in the fugato passage that begins at 5’20” – brilliant ensemble playing.
The Scherzo begins in a lighter, more playful mood, but darker, more macabre elements soon appear, reminding me of the Nachtmusik movements in Mahler’s seventh symphony. The slow movement has an improvisatory freedom (and especially beautiful string playing) which again never comes at the expense of the music’s long-term structure.
A marching music dispatched with plenty of swagger in the finale, which packs a wallop. The gong stroke that answers the movement’s largest climax is deeply resonant but underwhelming, and I wanted more savagery in the closing bars. For that, turn to Ashkenazy’s classic Concertgebouw/Decca recording, arguably his best recorded conducting.
Any performance of the second symphony enters a more crowded field, including an excellent 2021 recording by Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Robin Ticciati, also on Linn (review).
But Măcelaru proves finer still, faster than Ticciati in every movement (save the Adagio), with flexible shaping that feels more natural and spontaneous. The WDR’s silken strings impress, though wind solos are slightly cooler, more objective than their counterparts in Philadelphia or in the Bergen Philharmonic under Andrew Litton (BIS). Măcelaru also makes a rare miscalculation by adding the unnecessary timpani thwack on the first movement’s final note.
The exactitude of the playing in the second and fourth movements is thrilling, and Măcelaru’s shaping of the Adagio is glorious (though again, the clarinet solo strikes me as a bit cool). Still, there is more heart-on-sleeve ardor in Nézet-Séguin’s reading (in which he admittedly adopts extreme rubato). Most readers will already have one or more favorite performances of this beloved work – mine is Litton’s Bergen recording, which I find perfect in almost every way.
The reading of the third symphony is a complete success. Clocking in at just under 18 minutes, Măcelaru’s first movement is the slowest I know, yet it never feels slow. Instead, there is a great deal of freshly mined detail, often played with spine-tingling softness.
Listen to how he nurtures the growth and expansion of the cantabile theme each time it appears. The same is true of the melody that develops out of the violin solo that opens the second movement.
In the final movement, the fugato writing of the Allegro vivace (3’45”) is again brilliantly precise and colorful; the final Coda, masterfully paced, builds to a gripping final peroration.
Cristian Măcelaru (image: ©️ Radio France, Christophe Abramowitz)
“The Isle of the Dead” closes the set, its 22’56” slower than top performances by Jansons (St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Warner Classics – 19:47), and Petrenko (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Avie – 21’08”). The opening atmospheric, darkly forbidding, soon leads to climaxes of terrifying weight, dominated by snarling brass.
Any emotional reticence I sensed in the first symphony is now replaced by a deeper emotional involvement. Perhaps there is a loss of urgency compared to the faster readings listed above, though neither performance has the sound Linn provides here.
Otto Hagedorn’s excellent liner notes only add value to this collection, but I wish Linn included a player roster in addition to the orchestra’s biography. And given the consistent quality of the performances, it is a major disappointment that the set does not include the Symphonic Dances. But the included repertoire is generous by itself, and any lover of this music will want to hear these performances.
Recommended Comparisons:
Ashkenazy | Petrenko | Nézet-Séguin | Litton
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Album Details |
|
|---|---|
| Album name | Rachmaninoff – Orchestral Works |
| Label | Linn |
| Catalogue No. | CKD778 |
| Amazon Music link | Stream here |
| Apple Music link | Stream here |
| Artists | WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln Cristian Măcelaru |
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