アバドの演奏がユニークに感じられるのは、チャイコフスキーの音楽が持つ濃厚な情緒や、旋律の甘美さへの陶酔を戒め、感性と機能性に徹して純音楽的表現を志したという以上に、音楽が開放的に響く点にある。もっとも、感性と機能美で押し通した第4交響曲の名演というと、同じシカゴ交響楽団がショルティ（Sir Georg Solti 1912-1997）の指揮で、当盤の2年前に録音されたものが有名で、私もとても好きな録音。また濃厚な美麗さを追求しオーケストラを鳴らし切った演奏と言えば、その代表格はカラヤン（Herbert von Karajan 1908-1989）だっただろう。
The performances of both the Fantasy Overture and the Symphony compelling. Abbado is on top form in the overture, with a reading that joins each section of the piece so that it makes a coherent and convincing whole. The emotional impact is stunning, to my ears. I love the last movement of the symphony, taken at a brisk pace with no lack of clarity in any section of the orchestra.
5つ星のうち4.0Very Poor Sound Mars a fairly Good Performance.
2014年2月18日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済み
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02-17-2014 Boy, is this a trip back in time!! I still own my very first recording of this powerful Symphony, played to the heights of angst and sweat by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, probably recorded somewhere between say 1955 and 1968. I had to crank up the volume on this Columbia CD, because at the normal level I generally listen at, too many of this music subtleties got lost in the playback. Recorded in Orchestra Hall in the late 80's this DDD Columbia disk runs a total of 65:09, which includes a good Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture as a filler. First, the Symphony, which was written in 1877, by which time the composer was involved with two women of very different characters. The first, and most important to this discussion, was the wealthy railroad heiress Nadezhda von Meck and the mush lesser significant Antonina Milyukova an unbalanced neurotic and often suicidal 28 year old, 9 years the junior of the composer. Tchaikovsky only agreed to marry her in order to quell the rumors, later proven factual, of his homosexuality, as she was fixated on the composer. After the late 1980's phenomenon of Russia's "glasnost," new facts came tro light of Tchaikovsky's true cause of death. For nearly 100 years, we all thought he had died, shortly after the premiere of his Pathetique Symphony, due to his drinking a glass of unboiled water. We now know, that there was an outbreak of cholera in Russia at that time, so the puzzle pieces seemed to fit, conveniently. Not so, said the Tchaikovsky scholars. The composer had been involved in a homosexual affair with the Tsar's extended family, regarding an unknown to me, at least, male member. He had been requested, by an official in the Tsar's government, to resolve the situation, and so, he took a cyanide tablet or something like it, to "solve" the embarrassing problem. As his casket was lowered into it's grave, the whole matter had been successfully swept under the rug and considered "case closed." As for Mme. von Meck, she requested they never meet and used only "19th Century E-Mail" to communicate. There is a case I read about in the two biographies of the composer I had read, this one by musicologist Robert Warrick, that both von Meck and the composer once may have got a glimpse of each other at the opera in St. Petersburg. Although I have known this Symphony for so many years, I just recently discovered that there are two waltz sequences in the first movement and that they constitute the main body of this beginning 19:35 movement. Also, i found that in the middle is a passage of extreme urgency and emotion, which behaves like a trio. At around the 05:41 mark, we hear waltz #1, beginning slow and hushed it gradually builds up with the winds in the lead. After it crests with a big triumphant brass led crescendo, there is a very brief transition and then this huge, draining catharsis in at least mezzo-forte only to return to the waltz for a second go around, this time with a bit more punch. This central section, rising in great and angst ridden emotion is one of the composer's finest segments of orchestral writing, rivaling the jaw-dropping might of the climax ion the Pathetique's opening movement. The crushing relentlessness of the "fate" theme is magnificent with the outstanding CSO brass blowing with al their might and they have rarely sounded better. The 2nd waltz opens, once again, mildly at the 13:41 mark and builds much in the same manner as earlier. I had not appreciated Abbado's masterful shaping and molding of this sublime music, as indeed, overfamiliarity with #4 has led to some complacency on my part. Happily, I now have a new-found enthusiasm for this terrific Symphony and it may lead to a renewed interest in this final trio of Symphonies. One more fanfare "fate" announcement, and we head for the finale of the movement. All told, these 3 sections total about 11 and a half minutes and as the coda begins, at 17:54, Abbado takes a leisurely 1:40 or so, to whip the finale into a frenzy of power and tragic conclusion. WOW! I guess I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this Symphony.
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