Customer Reviews

Goldmark: Rustic Wedding Symphony/Sakuntala

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yondani Butt and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra kind of miss the mark on this recording of what are probably Karl Goldmark's greatest or well-known symphonic works.

The Rustic Wedding Symphony is a five-movement work of large proportions. The first movement is a theme and variations on a march theme. Goldmark does well in creating a catchy melody to vary and really puts it through the ringer. It is a fairly long movement timing out over 17 minutes on this recording. The second movement is a charming Brautlied; the third is probably the most whimsical serenade I have ever heard. Many will be familiar with the haunting "In the Garden" fourth movement. It sure has some serious undertones for being a movement of love. The final movement "Dance" is also fairly well known and brings the work to a rousing conclusion. Goldmark is excellent at creating melodies and he almost seems a classicist in setting them.

The Rustic Wedding is paired with the Sakuntala Overture, another orchestral standard. It is overtly romantic, again strong in melody and lushly scored for orchestra.

The performances here are a little substandard, most especially with the symphony. The orchestra suffers from occasional intonation issues and occasional string/winds/brass balance issues. It also suffers from a lack of motion. The Royal Philharmonic plays best when they all play together, it is usually during exposed sectional passages (occurs frequently) that tuning problems exist. The overture, while still lacking motion, is generally received better. The music is great, the performance just lacking. Try the budget priced Naxos for another version of some Goldmark.

An old Beecham specialty, Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony is a big, somewhat rambling and thoroughly endearing (and quite atmospheric) work. It has some attractive features and memorable melodies, and it is also, in the end, quite well constructed - whether or not it could properly be called a symphony is another matter, but a relatively uninteresting one. It was admired by Brahms, and that should perhaps carry some weight.

The first movement is perhaps the best, and is in fact a really fine and inventive movement with a distinct and distinctly rustic theme and some immensely atmospheric instrumental touches. The other movements contain many fine things as well, including a very fine intermezzo and a marvelously beautiful Serenade. No masterpiece, maybe, but not too far away either, and at least an immensely stimulating experience. Yondani Butt is for the most part impressively able to draw the necessary colors from the orchestra and has a good grip of the format; not quite in the league of Beecham, perhaps, but this is probably the best modern recording available and it would be a pity to award it less than a top score for that reason.

The coupling, the Sakuntala overture, is a marvelous piece. The opening is magical, and the main theme glorious and memorable, and Butt makes a convincing case for this work, which really deserves a place in the repertoire.

Sound quality is, however, not perfect - balance is questionable and the brass, for instance, sometimes sounds almost harsh. But in the end, this is a thoroughly recommendable disc of works that deserve to be in every serious record collector's collection (despite the slightly campy title of the main work).