The Olympia coupling of Kancheli’s Fourth and Fifth was one of my specially selected recordings in my survey of symphonies in the former Soviet Union back in May (page 36). Here now is a rival version of the same coupling but with an entire extra symphony, and at James DePreist’s tempos there would have been room for yet another one.
Not that knocking five minutes off Kakhidze’s timings for the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies seriously violates the music’s meditative spaces. These are perceptive and musicianly performances, and the Helsinki Philharmonic cannot be accused of a lack of sensitivity or precision. There is actually not much to choose either in timing or quality between the rival recordings of the First Symphony, though this piece is more valuable as a document than for its intrinsic merits. What it documents is Kancheli’s gradual discovery of his own voice from its roots in Shostakovich and Bartok.
The Fourth and Fifth Symphonies are masterpieces, however, and the extra trance-like intensity and mystery which the Georgians generate under Kancheli’s colleague and friend Dzansug Kakhidze is immediately evident. At the other extreme the assaults of the full orchestra lack foundation-rocking force in the Helsinkian performances. It doesn’t take a native orchestra to achieve such things – the BBC Symphony Orchestra produced the goods for Alexander Lazarev in a Royal Festival Hall performance of the Fourth Symphony a couple of years ago. But it takes a kind of transcendence of ordinary professional musical instincts.
Recording quality is on the dry side of ideal, whereas both Olympia discs have a little of the opposite drawback. Should those versions ever be deleted (perish the thought, but Olympia do seem to have been doing some weeding out of late) the new Ondine disc will be an admirable makeweight. For myself I am anticipating the day when I can hear these pieces in all their sonic glory from a world-class orchestra.'