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- Verified Buyer
Although Tchaikovsky did not live long enough to witness the championing of his music by the great Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, his younger brother Modest lived to become an immense admirer of the latter's work with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, even endorsing (according to Mengelberg) cuts to the last movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.Mengelberg did not dare to make cuts to any part of Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony, heard in this welcome Naxos reissue of a 1941 Telefuncun recording. Music relating to a manic-depressive mental condition suited him well. The Telefuncun recording policy also suited him well. Both conductor and recording engineers favored interventionism. Notice, for example, the moment at 8' 50" in the symphony's first movement just before the whole orchestra explodes at Allegro Vivo. Tchaikovsky marks the preceding bassoon solo pppppp, but it is very audible here. So too is the audible "placing" of the various sections of the orchestra in the third movement - more audibly obvious than in any modern stereo recording I have heard.Hearing this recording for the first time, I especially enjoyed the symphony's last two movements. I always enjoy hearing the Serenade for Strings, heard here in somewhat more muffled sonority from a 1938 Telefuncun recording. This is one of Tchaikovsky's greatest works.Mengelberg's recordings seem to be frequently coming up for rehearing and reassessing in the C21st. A Telefuncun recording of Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony is certainly one that deserves reissue - if copies of it still exist.
