COMPOSERS: Tchaikovsky
LABELS: Philips Duo
WORKS: The Sleeping Beauty
PERFORMER: Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra/Antal Dorati
CATALOGUE NO: 446 166-2 ADD (1981)
This is a patchy effort. The Concertgebouw sounds at times curiously uncommitted: a great orchestra, but one unable to shake the sleep from its eyes. Strings are muffly and indistinct, inner parts scarcely audible, something only partly attributable to generally lustreless sound. The orchestra’s moments of wakefulness, which arrive increasingly as the ballet wears on, are nonetheless exhilarating. Act III probably marks their peak, when the dances are performed with a vibrancy and deftness that leaves one regretting the slow start (and Dorati’s also, it must be admitted) that mars this recording. Christopher Wood
Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty
This is a patchy effort. The Concertgebouw sounds at times curiously uncommitted: a great orchestra, but one unable to shake the sleep from its eyes. Strings are muffly and indistinct, inner parts scarcely audible, something only partly attributable to generally lustreless sound. The orchestra’s moments of wakefulness, which arrive increasingly as the ballet wears on, are nonetheless exhilarating.
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:15 pm