Search - Luigi Cherubini, Howard Griffiths, Zurich Chamber Orchestra :: Luigi Cherubini: Symphony in D major

Toscanini Went to Bat for This Fine Symphony

07/29/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Since Toscanini's classic promotion effort on behalf of the Cherubini symphony, this charming but unchallenging work has been on the edges of the Classical repertory. Over the years it has had a few fine interpretations, one of my favorites being that with Ancel Brucilow and the (by some) still lamented Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra on RCA. The current performance conducted by Howard Griffiths is probably just as fine and is captured in clean, detailed digital sound. At his disposal, Griffiths has the Zurick Chamber Orchestra, who under his sympathetic direction repond wholeheartedly to this still out-of-the-way piece (as they do, indeed, to the much less well-known Ferdinand Ries in Griffith's survey of four symphonies on CPO). Cherubini's clever finale builds to its compelling conclusion with rock-solid rhythmic impetus under Griffiths, and the other movements have the requisite sunnyness and drama to tell us this is an alternate, very Latinate approach to a form dominated, in 1815, by Beethoven. Respected by no less a figure than that German master, Cherubini was most highly thought of as an opera composer for much of his career. The two overtures here are a fine entree to the powerful and imaginative curtain-raisers Cherubini produced for his stage works. They will certainly wet one's appetite for the even finer tone poems the Italian penned to kick off his Les Deux Journees and Anacreon. Griffiths and his forces are quite creditable in these works as well. Good stuff."