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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ENGLAND, THEIR ENGLAND, 13 Nov 2003
Previn has a conspicuous penchant for 20th century English music, both the music I am myself enthusiastic about such as Britten and Walton and the kind for which my mania is rather muted such as Holst and Vaughan Williams. I was therefore expecting a lot of this disc and I have not been disappointed.Britten did not always dislike Brahms, and even after he had gone off him in general he retained his admiration for the D minor concerto. For me, the start of the Sinfonia da Requiem should create the same kind of impact as the start of that mighty effort, and it absolutely does as Previn gives it. The peremptory call to attention, the glowering sense of hostility as well as tragedy, the lapse into uneasy quiet – this is the way I feel it should be. First impressions count as no other impressions do, and Previn had got me on his side right away. The rest was plain sailing, across a dark sea admittedly, and the power and the sadness of this great and probably still undervalued work are as strongly conveyed as I think I can ever remember. East Anglia is a part of the country that I am particularly fond of, and Crabbe is a poet who gets through to me. There is something I find hypnotic about the peculiar ‘tramp tramp’ of Crabbe’s couplets at their best, so music that evokes that coast both directly and via its own poet is music that I start predisposed to. First impressions helped again, and in the first number ‘Dawn’ Previn’s tempo struck me as perfectly judged, with the ‘lento’ not too slow and the sense of drifting mist perfectly caught. The later extracts were pretty much ideally to my taste too, the contrasts in mood strong and effective but not overplayed, and the final grim passacaglia caught the mood as I imagine it powerfully indeed – Crabbe humanised but not sentimentalised. Hardy’s Wessex , and Hardy’s novels, have always been a ‘dead zone’ in my own sensibility, and that sadly coincides with a lifelong inability to respond to the school of English music that includes Holst. I suppose I can be ‘objective’ about the Holst pieces here, but hardly in the best sense. They are obviously very well done, and Previn’s handling of Egdon Heath, more rhapsodic than say, Boult’s, is, I would guess, likely to win admirers among aficionados of the work. I can’t say how well it evokes that part of the country because the only places I know in Dorset are Bournemouth and Lyme Regis. I can however report that the playing of the LSO is admirable – in my view Previn worked marvels with them whatever battles that involved – and the recordings, made in 1975/6 and much admired in The Gramophone, are unexceptionable even if not quite outstanding by the highest up-to-date standards. There are not likely to be better accounts of any of this music for some time to come.
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~ London Philharmonic
~ Johannes Brahms
~ Edward Elgar
~ George Gershwin
~ Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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