Healthy Living Books Music

Rating: - pretty good stuff!
I bought this after seeing the orchestra at the Henry Wood Proms, where they did a sensational concert which was greeted with wild applause, cheers and foot-stamping. It's brave of Dudamel to come up with this coupling, and on the whole it works. The orchestra as listed is huge, and if they all played, the ensemble and precision are remarkable. There is some very good solo playing, particularly from woodwind, and the recording is fine. The inner parts in the strings are sonorous and clearly defined and the bass line is always powerful and purposeful. Speeds are mostly conventional, though the final movement of the 7th. Symphony is very fast indeed. There is some most attractive phrasing, but equally there are a few places which don't work so well, where, for whatever reason, something sounds not quite thought through or a little unconvincing (the end of the second movement of the 7th. is a case in point). I think the 7th. is a little more effective than the 5th., however - a nicely paced opening movement with consistently accurate presentation of the notoriously awkward dum-dee-dee 6/8 figures, a dignified and powerful 2nd. movement, a very crisply articulated Scherzo and a pretty successful hell-for-leather Finale, very exciting towards the end. The performances are always interesting and usually involving - it's a great CD, and all credit to them - but these are not yet among the great interpretations of these works. But why should they be? These are tremendously talented very young musicians and their technical expertise, commitment and energy, harnessed by their remarkable young conductor, are well represented on this CD.