3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THIS IS A RECORDING TO STRIKE THE FEAR OF FATE INTO YOU!, December 10, 2003
This review is from: Symphony 6 / Hamlet (Audio CD)
Goosebumps. Fear. Fright. Terror. That's mov't I.
Dread. Dead. Dying. Resignation. That's mov't IV.
If you have Ormandy's earliest *Sony* stereo version, you'll have an inkling of what this recording is like. Ormandy's recording is to cherish. Slatkin's is to horde and covet. You MUST have this Pathetique in your collection! American Record Guide, who panned a lot of Slatkin's Tchaikovsky series (unjustly in some instances, I might add (IMHO, of course)), called this THE recording of this work (if there is such a thing).
From the first fff chord in I, there is a terror that permeates the work. It lies silently in wait in II and III, which have always seemed a little out of place in this work of gloom and doom to me. The terror from I returns in IV, transformed into a helpless resignation. Limp on the ground. Alone. Desolate. As in, bury-me-know-I've-lost-the-battle-with-life despair. It's not Bernstein's over the top, whip the resigned guy with more emotional tassles. Slatkin is true to the music to the very end.
Needless to say, the playing by the orchestra is super-human. This recording is by far the best performance in their already excellent, under-appreciated, under-publicized, series (caveat: I haven't heard 4 yet).
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