Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Christoph von Dohnányi, Cleveland Orchestra :: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique"; Polonaise from Eugen Onegin

Dohnanyi's PATHETIQUE is cool and Classical, but very fine

Alan Majeska | Bad Axe, MI, USA | 04/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Christoph von Dohnanyi recorded Tchaikovsky's farewell opus in 1986 with the Cleveland Orchestra sounding terrific in Telarc's recording. I have read criticisms of this recording as being too cool and Classical, not "heart on sleeve" enough to serve Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique", but on listening to it, find it more than acceptable and quite fine. George Szell would have conducted this work as Dohnanyi did, had Szell recorded it. (Szell did record Tchaikovsky's Symphony 4 with the London Symphony for Decca, and Symphony 5 with the Cleveland Orchestra for Columbia: now Sony Classical).



Dohnanyi does not use excesses in nuance, slowing down or speeding up tempos, or other expressive devices to make points. He rather gets out of the way, and lets the Cleveland Orchestra play Tchaikovsky. I do not find Dohnanyi at all cold: he is just not the interpreter who puts his own personalized stamp on this piece, as did Bernstein (Sony, DG), Furtwangler (DG, Classica d'Oro), or Stokowski (RCA). (Bernstein and Furtwangler may be easier to find than Stokowski, which was released here in a multi disc set of his RCA recordings in the late 1990s but has since been deleted).



For those who prefer other conductors in Tchaikovsky's PATHETIQUE there are recordings of Ormandy (Sony), Bernstein (Sony or DG), Abbado/Vienna (DG: NOT the Chicago recording, on CBS), Ashkenazy (Decca), Furtwangler (DG: multi disc set; or CDO: historical mono recordings from ca. 1938), Wit (Naxos) and Slatkin (RCA). But you won't go wrong with Dohnanyi unless you insist on a more emotional, heart on sleeve recording."

Fine, but with some reservations.

Jeffrey Lee | Asheville area, NC USA | 01/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Here's a fairly well balanced , songful Pathetique executed with technical aplomb. The first movement unfolds in grand style. The beauty, the urgency, the passages that blaze, the moments where rising and falling chords are juxtaposed, the quieter, reflective pauses---everything is characterized in virtually ideal fashion. Next, I've never heard a better played, more musical second movement waltz. The third movement march, I feel, should have been played more tightly and forcefully. In the final movement, Dohnanyi falls somewhat short in terms of plumbing the depths of despair. Again, as with the third movement, some intensity is missing. You don't really get the feeling of drive and fervor projected by Mravinsky. Overall, however, the level of play of the Cleveland Orchestra is consistently very fine and, to some extent, a nice compensating factor considering the partial voltage deficit in Dohnanyi's interpretation. Incidentally, both orchestra and conductor offer a solid account of the Polonaise from Eugen Onegin, a pleasant change from the commercially overexposed Romeo and Juliet. Soundwise, the recording is fine."

One of Dohnanyi's freest, most exciting recordings

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/18/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's fairly usual for reviews at Amazon to boil down to a random collection of subjetive impressions, which is certainly the case here. As a prospective buyer, I wouldn't have the foggist about Dohnanyi's "Pathetique" from 1986, quite early in his 18-year tenure with the Clevelanders. Is this reading robotic, cold, absent of interpretation, sleek, or European in its sophistication, as various reviewers claim? Sigh. Who would ever know?



To my ears it's unexpectedly powerful. Dohnanyi was often billed as an objectivist, but one member of the orchestra probably said it better when he described Dohananyi, from a player's perspective, as both unpredictable and manic-depressive. The side I'm most familiar with was too detached and restrained for my tastes, but in concert Dohnanyi was capable of letting himself go. That happens here in the climax of the first movement, where the impassioned brass choirs are much more on the rough than the sleek side. The movement as a whole has quite a lot of propulsiveness in it, although the opening, which should express an air of premonition, falls rather flat.



The second movement waltz is also powerful and passionate to a degree that surprised me -- this isn't quasi-Karajan glossiness or an elegant run-through. Emotion rises and falls in a gripping way. After decades of listening to the "Pathetique," it takes something special to get my attention in the Scherzo, which rolls out, mroe often than not, as a showpiece for virtuoso orchestras, of which Cleveland certainly is one. While admiring the orchestral richness, which is fully brought out by Telarc's sonics, the Gramophone complained that Dohnany's Tchaikovsky was "too easy, sweet and smooth." Yet this Scherzo is bumptious and loose-limbed, not overly refined. As in the rest of the performance, Dohnanyi doesn't have on his control-freak cap; the pacing is free and therefore exciting. He avoids the unwritten accelerando that most conductors use to cap off the movement in a burst of fireworks.



Because he doesn't lift the roof at the end of the Scherzo, the immediate shift to the mournful surge that begins the finale isn't as shocking as it could be. Conductors come to a fork in the road in this movement, deciding between elegaic restraint and wrenching catharsis. Since I favor the latter, Dohnanyi's heart-on-sleeve approach (which, surprisingly, shows more passion than Giulini on EMI) feels stirring. He doesn't lose all restraint a la Bernstein (I can go there, too), but the sheer depth of sonority in the basses carries immense conviction. The gradual dimenuendo into the extinction of silence that ends this symphony should be heart-rending, and here it almost is.



The CD ends with a terrific, powerful reading of the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin. It can't compensate for a stingy 49 min. total timing, but this was such a riveting program that all is forgiven."