De Sabata: Gethsemani; Notte di Plàton

Editorial Reviews
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Victor de Sabata (1892-1967) is remembered as a conductor of consummate gifts: to name simply two of the most mechanical, he could play every instrument in the orchestra and had a memory that defied belief, though even that reputation is beginning to fade as time wears on. Virtually nobody recalls that he was also a composer, and a very fine one, conducted in his time by Damrosch, Toscanini, Serafin and Martinon. I was lucky enough, a few years back, to read through two of the scores recorded here and knew we were in for a treat if anyone were ever to get round to recording them. Well, Aldo Ceccato, de Sabata's son-in-law, now does the honours, and the music turns out to be better than I had dared hope.These three works – La notte di Platon (1923), labelled a 'symphonic sketch', Gethsemani (1925), a 'contemplative poem', and Juventus (1919), a symphonic poem – constitute the bulk of de Sabata's orchestral oeuvre (there's also the Symphonic Suite, a ballet score to 1001 Nights and incidental music to The Merchant of Venice). They make it clear what a crying shame it is that de Sabata didn't have the self-confidence to persevere as a composer. His style is anchored in the velveteen richness of Respighi, but with more transparency of line and even more subtlety of tone. From the opening minutes of Juventus, my guess would have been that he knew his Elgar – but orchestral legend has it otherwise. The story is that de Sabata, rehearsing in London around 1930, was asked why he never conducted any English music; because there's nothing worth doing, he answered. Did he know the Enigma Variations? No. So they gave him a score to take home and he went through the work – from memory – at the next morning's rehearsal, which Elgar himself and Malcolm Sargent attended. De Sabata was apparently correcting mistakes in the parts that neither the composer nor the man who fancied himself its principal interpreter had noticed. If the resemblance is coincidence, the suggestion may come from the sheer virtuosity of the scoring, the ability to pluck colour from different sections of the orchestne. There's a hint of Mahler in the yearning string lines. Even more surprisingly, there's something of Bernstein's summer-night-love idiom, particularly in Gethsemani: time and again, it points at the romantic episodes from West Side Story. It is, in short, an astonishing discovery.Aldo Ceccato draws loving performances from the LPO. Hyperion has given him adequate recorded sound: it could usefully have been more transparent, and the strings have little bloom – in this of all music. There are excellent notes from Robert Matthew-Walker. I've one further quibble – I would have presented the works in chronological order: the knock-about Juventus strikes the ear as unnecessarily lusty after the exquisite refinement of Gethsemani, which contains some of the loveliest orchestral sounds I have heard in years. If you have made a resolution to buy only one CD this month, you should make it this one.Martin Anderson

Customer Reviews:

Don Juan, move over!.......2002-07-26

The 20th century was such a murderous embarrassment to the human race, it's no wonder so many angry, angsty, or nasty--but great--pieces of music were written during the period.

De Sabata's "Juventus" is one of the far fewer great 20th-century works for the positive side of the human coin. Here we have a surging, yearning, flamboyant, let-it-all-hang-out saga of youthful ambition, brilliantly conceived and orchestrated by a conductor who chose the more financially reliable path of performance over that of posthumous fame for composition.

There were many great orchestrators in the 20th century, but fewer who wrote great melodies as well. "Juventus" has such a melody, its second theme or "love" theme. Some may not catch it the first time around, but once you DO catch it, your heart will fly every time you hear it.

The piece is similar in spirit to Strauss's "Don Juan" or the drama of a Korngold film score. It is for listeners who like to soar like Tchaikovsky, but eventually find the Russian master too repetitive.

The other works are very fine as well, but less distinctive, less overtly passionate.

Buy the CD, and be young again! Or continue to listen to Britten's War Requiem. The choice is yours.

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