Franck: Symphony in Dm; Stravinsky: Petrushka

Track Listings

1. Sym in d: Lento - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux

2. Sym in d: Allegretto - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux

3. Sym in d: Allegro Non Troppo - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux

4. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Vivace

5. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: The Magic Trick

6. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Russian Dance

7. Petrouchka: Scene II: Petrouchka's Room:

8. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Feroce Stringendo

9. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Dance Of The Ballerina

10. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Valse

11. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Con Moto

12. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Wet Nurses' Dance

13. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Peasant With Bear

14. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Gypsies

15. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Dance Of The Coachmen

16. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Masqueraders

17. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Scuffle

18. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Death Of Petrouchka

19. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Petrouchka's Ghost

Tracks:

Sym in d: Lento - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
Sym in d: Allegretto - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
Sym in d: Allegro Non Troppo - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Vivace
Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: The Magic Trick
Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Russian Dance
Petrouchka: Scene II: Petrouchka's Room:
Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Feroce Stringendo
Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Dance Of The Ballerina
Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Valse
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Con Moto
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Wet Nurses' Dance
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Peasant With Bear
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Gypsies
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Dance Of The Coachmen
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Masqueraders
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Scuffle
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Death Of Petrouchka
Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Petrouchka's Ghost

Customer Reviews:

Chapeaux!.......2004-07-28

To qualify this interpretation is to name securely the most symphonic achievement of Monteux along his long and interesting career .
The Franck Symphony is a real challenge for any conductor . Since you have to create a inner tension state without falling in effectism or glamorous fireworks who may be considered cool for the new listener of this work but that approach will carry to tedious sooner or later .
Monteux knew to make "breathe" the work . And therefore he never struggles with overwhelming rubatos or melodramatic soap approach .
The Chicago Symphony worked out perfectly and made one of the top line performances and even historical recordings in the XX century.

A Great Recording.......2002-03-01

This is a nice disc of two heavily recorded favorite pieces. Pierre Monteux, through his long association with this music, has an authority that is justified here. The Frank Symphony is rousing. The CSO performs the music flawlessly. I had not heard it for some time and it was great to make its acquaintance again. This recording of Petrouchka uses the 1911 score, which may take some listeners by surprise since the drum rolls between the scenes are absent. The ballet is beautifully recorded and Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony are in top form. It is interesting to know that the conductor, who premiered this work, never ceased making small tempo changes here and there, always trying to give a different presentation of the ballet.

This disc is part of the remastered Living Stereo series and has transferred remarkably well. Even if you have other recordings of these works, these should be part of your collection.

Marvelous performance, lousy remastering.......2001-04-17

Monteux and the CSO give the best recording I have heard of the Franck symphony-- it is justly famous. However, the remastering is awful. I have compared this cd with an earlier cd issue from the library and this new remastering has removed the power and fullness of the music. Some new detail emerges in this remastering but the price is too high. I have found the same problem with other RCA "Living Sterio" discs like the Reiner/CSO recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra or the Pines of Rome. My advice is to look for older used cds with these recordings.

Towering, majestic, etc........2001-02-22

.... The conducting is amazing--such rubato! There is hardlytwo beats that are the same duration--and yet the music justflows!

Chicago forces give a pumped-up performance that fitsMonteux's view superlatively--and really makes waste of Monteux's SanFrancisco forces, ... nothing like the excellent group that residesthere now!

It's quite an experience.

Parting the views.......2000-07-19

I'm getting weary with Papa Franck and Papa Monteux rhapsodies that STILL abound after all these years. Just when you think the sap is thinning out a bit, a review comes along that makes things all sticky sweet again. ...

Monteux was an accessible, communicative, oftentimes interpretatively astringent artist whose walrus physical appearance led the press to assign a persona to him that was not necessarily true. Oftentimes he was maddeningly sloppy, even unprepared, and as we give his recorded output more consideration, we finally come to notice he too often didn't get the standard of performance he could have.

This disk of Franck and Stravinsky is a case-in-point. The Chicago Symphony was a lousy choice for RCA to do a Monteux remake of this work, back in 1960. His '48 San Francisco reading was leagues better--lean, powerful, responsive, dramatic amid some scruff here and there. The CSO gives him Parsifal brass, Ringstrasse winds, heft and heave that makes the work heavy-footed and Teutonic to the point of distraction.

To make matters worse, the recording session orchestral set up with violins divided across the front, gives a pretty lame impression of an attempt to lighten the texture through neo-choral presentation. All it adds is busyness in a dark, turgid proceeding. It's not pleasant and it's certainly not Franck. It's Monteux allowing himself to be led around by Lewis Layton and his engineers. Yet this has been the fashionable Franck production for those who do not truly listen to Franck performance paradigms they expound.

The Stravinsky is quite a bit better (and an odd coupling), and again, we get some shaky chording that could have been supervised better and a reading that goes some way away from the dance that this ballet is. Overall, the performance is nicely proportioned and finished, though, but only better than the conductor'searlier Paris effort due to more expert execution. Yet, both recordings show little executive scraps, leavings, debris that give the impression of slovenliness.

All this renders this issue a Monteux document, more informative of what it says about him than it does of the music at hand. For the Franck, get Monteux's confrere Paray on Mercury and have a powerful, dramatic, colorful, transluscent, kinetic and, above all, Gallic experience of the lion that the composer was. For the Stravinsky, grab Antal Dorati in Minneapolis or Detroit for a compelling dance theatre experience where you can smell the sweat and feel the grit of the boards...and why the music was so revolutionary.

Sorry to say, comparative listening renders this Monteux release to the dusky corner of a memorial. I urge everyone to look into Monteux's very fine Beethoven, Brahms, and Debussy (a bit sloppy again but wonderful) for the artist at his best. With these we begin to wonder at what could have been if Monteux had worked more along those lines.

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

Track Listings

Public Record

Sibelius: Symphony No. 6, Op. 104; Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49; En Saga Op. 9

Rhapsody in Blue and Other Piano Favourites

Pastoral Composure

The Best of Humate

Teamwork [Enhanced]

Reino Da Folia [Import]

The Dreams of Men [Import]

Still Not Getting Any [Import]

Scarlatti Cantatas, Volume III / McGegan, Brian Asawa

Strokin' [Import]

Puro Amor

Que Sentimiento [Import]

Pat the White

Day of Reckoning

1. Sym in d: Lento - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
2. Sym in d: Allegretto - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
3. Sym in d: Allegro Non Troppo - Chicago SO/Pierre Monteux
4. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Vivace
5. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: The Magic Trick
6. Petrouchka: Scene I: The Shrovetide Fair: Russian Dance
7. Petrouchka: Scene II: Petrouchka's Room:
8. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Feroce Stringendo
9. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Dance Of The Ballerina
10. Petrouchka: Scene III: The Moor's Room: Valse
11. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Con Moto
12. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Wet Nurses' Dance
13. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Peasant With Bear
14. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Gypsies
15. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Dance Of The Coachmen
16. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Masqueraders
17. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Scuffle
18. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Death Of Petrouchka
19. Petrouchka: Scene IV: The Fair Toward Evening: Petrouchka's Ghost