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Here's one of the most desirable instalments yet in Bernard Haitink's patient and always thought-provoking VW symphony cycle for EMI. The performance of the visionary Sixth Symphony impresses in its profound concentration and innate musicality: not only is Haitink's pacing infallible (nowhere more so than towards the first movement, where his noble
Here's one of the most desirable instalments yet in Bernard Haitink's patient and always thought-provoking VW symphony cycle for EMI. The performance of the visionary Sixth Symphony impresses in its profound concentration and innate musicality: not only is Haitink's pacing infallible (nowhere more so than towards the first movement, where his noble handling of the secondary melody's final full flowering--once familiar as the theme from the 1970s TV series A Family at War--is as near to perfection as could be imagined), he also galvanises the London Philharmonic to give of their considerable best. Of DDD rivals, only Vernon Handley's exemplary Liverpool account on mid-price EMI Eminence boasts the same level of insight and accomplishment (indeed, his closing bars are, if anything, even more searching than the Dutchman's). The rest of Haitink's programme, however, effortlessly lifts his CD into the indispensable class. In the intensely evocative song-cycle On Wenlock Edge (which sets six poems from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad), tenor Ian Bostridge has never been better, and the sublimely articulate orchestral playing both here and in the lovely, youthful "symphonic impression" In the Fen Country is an absolute joy. The sound is marvellously realistic throughout. --Andrew Achenbach
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