On paper this looks like a winner. The Berlin Philharmonic is easily the most prestigious orchestra to have attempted all the Prokofiev symphonies on disc and there are usually more than incidental pleasures to be had from hearing them in any repertoire. Rob Cowan was generous, hailing a ‘cycle which, broadly speaking, has found the BPO in sympathy with a corpus of music they can’t have encountered very often’. I have to say I find that lack of familiarity more of a problem. Notwithstanding the lure of DG’s competitive pricing and a splendid design concept, I would advise approaching with caution. Some may like the heft of these big, solid recordings (and the implausibly audible piano), but too often the close-miked strands sound as if they have been reassembled at the mixing desk. As interpretations, they are consistently bland.
It is the Classical Symphony that receives the most individual treatment. Indeed, the first three movements will seem astonishingly broad to anyone brought up on the quicksilver dash of Koussevitzky (Biddulph). The humour is much diminished, though there are compensations in the detail unearthed. No 6 comes next, and here Ozawa merely glides across the surface, failing to give the ideas the edge and bite without which the argument falls flat. Mravinsky’s sonically disadvantaged but incendiary live recording (Praga) is an essential supplement to any mainstream choice. On to the second disc, where the Allegro of No 2 had me longing for the raw venom of Rozhdestvensky’s Soviet winds. Admittedly the second movement goes better, Ozawa securing more refined playing than we have usually heard in this music. In the Seventh, he chooses the original, darker ending that omits the final flourish. Only there isn’t enough pain or disquiet in what has gone before to make the decision seem anything but arbitrary. Nor is it easy to forgive second-rate playing from this source, as in the slow movement where duff horns provoke a thoroughly uncertain patch from 4'26''.
The next CD couples the Third and Fourth, two works that desperately need committed performances if they are to convince as symphonies. In 1947, Prokofiev himself revisited the Fourth, adding a veneer of Soviet pomp to this ragbag of offcuts from his final Diaghilev ballet, The Prodigal Son. Like Weller and Kosler in their cycles, Ozawa chooses the gutsier later version whereas Jarvi offers both. Fortunately, the slow movement in either guise retains one of Prokofiev’s most beautiful and archetypal ideas. Initially allocated to flute, that key line is almost buried here. But by now I was hardly expecting Ozawa to be truly inside this music. The third movement is untenably slow, and, as usual, not enough time has been spent on tidying awkward corners (there’s an astonishing woodwind gaffe in the first movement at 12'19'').
The Fifth was a Karajan speciality (see page 78), so there’s no excuse for the momentary shambles when, just before the close, Prokofiev suddenly reduces the dynamic level as if to make us confront the compromised and fretful quality of the rejoicing (from around 9'32''). As so often in this series, the self-consciously analytical recording style lets us hear too much sloppily articulated detail. The makeweight is Kije, ubiquitous enough though rarely heard as here with guest vocalist; that famous ‘Troika’ sounds much less bland with Andreas Schmidt in the driving seat. Elsewhere the handsome upholstery cannot disguise what seems to me a fairly profound lack of engagement all round. Admirable booklet-notes by David Fanning can’t save the project. If you want an integrale under one conductor, Jarvi is worth the extra outlay.'