Your favourite Tchaikovsky symphony?

[Lilas Pastia]

Manfred recommendations: they come in many coulours and flavours:

- Abravanel: brings the music closer to the Suites and the first 3 symphonies; underplays the melodrama; brings out winds to very nice effect. Slightly undernourished strings; a bit distantly recorded, but boosting the volume brings a very satisfying, natural and panoramic sound.

- Maazel: take all of the above and reverse the comments. If you like your Tchaikovsky in a neurotic, hand-wringing mood, this is the ticket. Sumptuously played and recorded.

- Markevitch: same qualities as in his well-known accounts of the numbered symphonies. Probably a first recommendation despite the 40+ year old recording date. Here's a Classicstoday review (by Dan Davis, not Hurwitz) that really sums it up very nicely: http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=5277

- Muti: a very safe version, in the best sense: superbly played, very well recorded. I find it a bit overcontrolled, but if you enjoy Muti's Tchaikovsky, he certainly makes this Manfred proud. I'd say this is the most 'symphonic' Manfred around.

- Svetlanov: recorded it twice. I didn't hear them, but apparently the 1992 is exhilarating (French critics are lost in admiration for this version). He omits the organ choral at the end though .

- Toscanini: 3 extant recordings. The NBC from 1953 is widely available. AT maked a big cut in the finale . But you'll be shaken all the same: it's hugely dramatic and played to the hilt by the orchestra.

There are other versions by Chailly, Masur, Pletnev,  Janssons, Rozhdestvenski, etc. From reviews I've read, the Rozh accounts are the most exciting around, bar none. But they're hard to find and in raw sound. I've heard the Pletnev and Janssons and they're not in the running despite superb playing and sound.

[Que]

- Markevitch: same qualities as in his well-known accounts of the numbered symphonies. Probably a first recommendation despite the 40+ year old recording date. Here's a Classicstoday review (by Dan Davis, not Hurwitz) that really sums it up very nicely: http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=5277

Wholeheartedly seconded. Sounds very good for its age, I think.
I haven't heard Svetlanov either - might be an interesting alternative take.

Q

[Bogey]

Manfred recommendations: they come in many coulours and flavours:

- Maazel: take all of the above and reverse the comments. If you like your Tchaikovsky in a neurotic, hand-wringing mood, this is the ticket. Sumptuously played and recorded.

Good to hear this.  Thanks!

[George]

Manfred recommendations: they come in many coulours and flavours:

- Abravanel: brings the music closer to the Suites and the first 3 symphonies; underplays the melodrama; brings out winds to very nice effect. Slightly undernourished strings; a bit distantly recorded, but boosting the volume brings a very satisfying, natural and panoramic sound.

- Maazel: take all of the above and reverse the comments. If you like your Tchaikovsky in a neurotic, hand-wringing mood, this is the ticket. Sumptuously played and recorded.

- Markevitch: same qualities as in his well-known accounts of the numbered symphonies. Probably a first recommendation despite the 40+ year old recording date. Here's a Classicstoday review (by Dan Davis, not Hurwitz) that really sums it up very nicely: http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=5277

- Muti: a very safe version, in the best sense: superbly played, very well recorded. I find it a bit overcontrolled, but if you enjoy Muti's Tchaikovsky, he certainly makes this Manfred proud. I'd say this is the most 'symphonic' Manfred around.

- Svetlanov: recorded it twice. I didn't hear them, but apparently the 1992 is exhilarating (French critics are lost in admiration for this version). He omits the organ choral at the end though .

- Toscanini: 3 extant recordings. The NBC from 1953 is widely available. AT maked a big cut in the finale . But you'll be shaken all the same: it's hugely dramatic and played to the hilt by the orchestra.

There are other versions by Chailly, Masur, Pletnev,  Janssons, Rozhdestvenski, etc. From reviews I've read, the Rozh accounts are the most exciting around, bar none. But they're hard to find and in raw sound. I've heard the Pletnev and Janssons and they're not in the running despite superb playing and sound.

Thanks a lot for that! 

How's the Pletnev?

[Lilas Pastia]

I didn't think much of it. It is rather disjointed. There are impressive bits, but it never coheres into a satisfying whole. If you google Manfred Pletnev and check the reviews on the Amazon sites you'll find a lot of reviews, and they're all over the place. Count me among the unimpressed. Same with Janssons: some find him terrific, others boring. I hear a taut but timid reading. Some exhilaration, very little emotion, it's rather constipated.

[lukeottevanger]

The Fifth for me, though I find it hard to say why (apart from the fact that it was the first Tchaikovsky symphony I heard as a boy). It might be something to do with the fact that the second movement is so strong, and that I relish the relative poise, clear-headed thinking and classical balance of the first movement; like much of the music in the later symphonies it is obviously rooted in ballet and perhaps uncomfortably so, but it wears this more lightly than its fellows....I find it hard to put into words, as you can see. However, I'm sure the Sixth is a finer piece, and my own personal definition of 'great melody' always goes straight to the main subject of the slow movement of the Fourth - a tune so strong it needs no rhythmic differentiation to sear itself on the mind.

[Danny]

I also say the Fifth; I think it has the best elements of Pyotr (deep emotion, beautiful melodies with excellent shades of feeling) that is mature and concise.  His earlier works all hit or miss the mark for me, generally, but the Fifth has never failed to satisfy.  Perhaps the Sixth is his most moving and intense work (for all the reasons involved), but I say Tchaikovsky reached a balanced perfection with the Fifth.

[dhibbard]

I just have a beef to pick with Dave Hurwitz... why does he hate the Pletnev versions of the Tchaikovsky symphonies?   I have several versions including those, Svetlanov, Markevitch,, etc   they are just as good imho.

[Maestro267]

Wow, nearly 17 years. Must be a close to a record of some sort.

[Luke]

Yeah, but that lukeottevanger guy (answer #45) really knew what he was on about. I'd vote 5 too, for exactly the same reasons.

[AnotherSpin]

I like the Fifth. When Brezhnev was buried, there was a live broadcast on TV, and the Andante cantabile was repeated endlessly. It was lovely.

[AnotherSpin]

As far as interpretations go, for me it's Mravinsky. The earlier mono recordings on DG is better than the next ones in stereo. Mravinsky almost managed to avoid the sugary platitudes and cartoonish tragicism that so often characterize other interpretations.

[Jo498]

The 6th avoids the failures of the per aspera ad astra attempts in 4 and 5. Its "fault" is to be even more theatralic and melodramatic than the preceeding but it's a brilliant alternative solution, I think.
As a teenager the 5th was my favorite (o.k. I knew only 2,5,6 for several years). It's a good piece and has more formal/musical closure in a sense.
But its finale makes no sense poetically. We have been haunted by the fate motive of the introduction and now this is first transformed into a hymn in the major mode without any clear development how this triumph was achieved. And worse, after this intro we get a rather wild finale, mostly in the minor again that makes even less sense in the overall "narrative."

[Que]

As far as interpretations go, for me it's Mravinsky. The earlier mono recordings on DG is better than the next ones in stereo. Mravinsky almost managed to avoid the sugary platitudes and cartoonish tragicism that so often characterize other interpretations.

Interesting! I did find the stereo remake kind of dissapointing...

[Jo498]

A bit simplified, I think it's not that hard to avoid "sugariness" if one plays everything very fast and it's in dry mono sound... This holds, AFAIR not only for Mravinsky (I only kept the stereo because of the better sound) but also for the early (ca. 1950-53) Fricsay/DG 4-6 or for Toscanini (IIRC 6th only) and even Markevitch and Szell (despite in better but still rather dry early stereo).

[Florestan]

Why would someone want to take out the sentimentality and the melodrama from Tchaikovsky? Then all his charm and appeal would vanish and we'd be left with a desiccated pseudo-Tchaikovsky. If they want coldness and dispassion, there's plenty of music to choose from, there's absolutely no need to turn Tchaikovsky into Stravinsky.

[AnotherSpin]

Why would someone want to take out the sentimentality and the melodrama from Tchaikovsky? Then all his charm and appeal would vanish and we'd be left with a desiccated pseudo-Tchaikovsky. If they want coldness and dispassion, there's plenty of music to choose from, there's absolutely no need to turn Tchaikovsky into Stravinsky.

The label pseudo-Tchaikovsky hardly fits Mravinsky. I find his performances (also applied to Shostakovich) to be benchmark Soviet performances. I do not agree that they are insensitive. Yes, no saccharine. But - chill, gloom, steel. Almost completely hopeless despair. The mono versions of the sixth and especially the fifth are exactly that. Perfect fit for mid-century USSR interpretation. His stereo versions are softer, more suitable for western ears.

Perhaps my purely subjective perception of Mravinsky's recordings is dictated by blood memory. My father lived in post-war Leningrad and barely survived pneumonia. He was forbidden to stay there and was ordered to go south.

[Florestan]

The label pseudo-Tchaikovsky hardly fits Mravinsky. I find his performances (also applied to Shostakovich) to be benchmark Soviet performances. I do not agree that they are insensitive. Yes, no saccharine. But - chill, gloom, steel. Almost completely hopeless despair. The mono versions of the sixth and especially the fifth are exactly that. Perfect fit for mid-century USSR interpretation. His stereo versions are softer, more suitable for western ears.

Perhaps my purely subjective perception of Mravinsky's recordings is dictated by blood memory. My father lived in post-war Leningrad and barely survived pneumonia. He was forbidden to stay there and was ordered to go south.

Oh, I wasn't talking about conductors, but about people who complain about Tchaikovsky being schmaltzy and melodramatic. 

[AnotherSpin]

Oh, I wasn't talking about conductors, but about people who complain about Tchaikovsky being schmaltzy and melodramatic. 

He is schmaltzy and melodramatic in most of the performances And Mravinsky's performances demonstrate more than convincingly that this is not at all necessary. And not only Mravinsky, many old recordings are not like this. Recordings of the Piano Concerto with Horowitz/Toscanini, for example.

[Karl Henning]

Yeah, but that lukeottevanger guy (answer #45) really knew what he was on about. I'd vote 5 too, for exactly the same reasons.

Not sure I voted, but yes, the e minor!