COMPOSERS: Verdi/Rossini
LABELS: Mercury
WORKS: Overtures
PERFORMER: LSO, Minneapolis SO/Antal Dorati
CATALOGUE NO: 434 345-2 ADD (1957)
Ample notes are supplied on the music and the recording process with these 1957 reissues. Though there is little sense of space compared to the best of modern recordings, the range of sound is impressive and the overall effect bright. Regrettably, Dorati drives the Verdi relentlessly, with scarcely any rhythmic flexibility, and the playing of the LSO is less polished than one might expect. The Rossini items are worse, Dorati’s heavy-handed attempts at pointing up this or that felicitous touch serving only to destroy the music’s classical poise. The playing of the Minneapolis SO is coarse and sloppy. George Hall
Verdi/Rossini
Ample notes are supplied on the music and the recording process with these 1957 reissues. Though there is little sense of space compared to the best of modern recordings, the range of sound is impressive and the overall effect bright. Regrettably, Dorati drives the Verdi relentlessly, with scarcely any rhythmic flexibility, and the playing of the LSO is less polished than one might expect. The Rossini items are worse, Dorati’s heavy-handed attempts at pointing up this or that felicitous touch serving only to destroy the music’s classical poise.
Our rating
1
Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:16 pm