Search - Bohuslav Martinu, Arthur Fagen, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine :: Martinu: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4

Lighten up, guys! This is not that bad a recording.

Michael D. Bauer | St. Paul, MN USA | 02/24/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Good lord, to read these reviews you'd think this was a performance by war criminals or orcs. But for a budget-priced recording, it's a fine introduction to Martinu for the hesitant & budget-conscious.



Go ahead and disagree with Fagen's reading; that's fair game. But as with the 99-cent cassette tape that introduced me to Tchaikovsky's Fourth when I was a teenager, the composer's voice in these works is too powerful to be suppressed by Fagen or anyone else with the courage to attempt to bring them to life. As far as I'm concerned, Martinu's symphonies are brilliant enough to be performed on a calliope without losing much of their inherent passion, and the NSO of Ukraine sounds considerably better than a calliope.



Balance, intonation, clarity, tone, and production values here are all fine. These are difficult works in which stormy dissonance is often immediately followed by gentle harmony, both of which come across well. And even Fagen's interpretation, which for all I know *might* be off (I don't own the scores to these symphonies), still *sounds* quite convincing. It isn't like, say, the 3rd-French-horn player is being allowed to drown out the violins at odd moments.



This is a good recording. Just because there are better ones doesn't make Naxos or Fagen miscreants. Maybe if/when I hear those superior recordings I'll never play these again, but I won't regret having used them to familiarize myself with these complex works; maybe I'll appreciate the better recordings even more as a result. In the mean time, I'll continue to enjoy these.



Postscript: if this tells you anything, in the six years since I originally posted this review, I've felt no need whatsoever to seek out different recordings of these works. Fagen and the NSO Ukraine's effort has held up very well indeed to repeated, much-enjoyed listening! Accordingly, I've bumped this up to four stars (from my cowardly original three)."