I sometimes wonder: was it Rachmaninov who created the Philadelphia sound, or the Philadelphia who created the Rachmaninov sound? No matter, the luxury lingers on: after CBS, RCA and EMI, 'the Decca Philadelphia sound'. The prospect was enticing, the product initially quite seductive. For sheen and sophistication, the Decca/Philadelphia/Dutoit team score a six. But beware of first impressions. Alarm bells started ringing for me with the arrival of the symphony's gorgeous second subject. All the fears I had harboured that Dutoit was quite simply miscast, the wrong man for the job, began to surface. The cool, clean, chaste approach simply will not do here. Rachmaninov is quite explicit about the shape and complexion of his melody: the rubato is plainly written into the score—discreet tenutos dictate the way it should breathe, the portamento is implied, subtle dynamic gradations give it light and shade. But Dutoit will have none of it: already he would seem to have parted company with the innate style of the music, the very particular nature of those Rachmaninovian articulations.
The emotional temperature is low, too. A few bars of the composer's own 1939 account (Pearl (CD) GEMMCD9414) reveal a terseness and intensity that quite elude Dutoit. Most of the internal tensions in this music stem from one fundamental conflict: Rachmaninov, the man, torn between an aching nostalgia for his past and a compulsive urge to move on to new horizons. Hence the leaner and pithier character of the orchestration. Dutoit is cool in crisis: those brazen horn-led exhortations at the heart of the first movement (around fig. 16) fail to intensify the drama at a critical point of no return; and how little he makes of that agonizing wave of string voices rising from the wake of the climax a few bars later (fig. 2 at 10'24''). I vividly recall Ormandy (Sony Classical) in these bars.
The second movement is initially more involving, the solo horn (beautiful) and solo violin gazing wistfully homeward; but again Dutoit must yield to Previn (EMI) as tutti violins take up their leader's lament. Under Previn each bar truly creates its own space, the sense of longing growing almost unbearable as the crescendo takes hold. It is a chill, pallid sort of beauty that Dutoit conveys in the shadowy recesses of this movement: exquisite where flute, harp and celeste dominate in the early pages, and yet curiously sterile too. In the ravishing two-bar cantabile for strings at 9'59'', the sudden evaporation to pianissimo (just after the suspensary comma) goes for nothing; likewise that heart-stopping swoop up the octave in the first violins as the principal theme reasserts itself six bars later. The finale brings ample brilliance, plenty of air and light in the texture but, again, why don't I feel that upsurge of emotion in the yearning meno mosso theme; and whatever happened to the keening trumpet and horn counterpoints which sear the string texture? On a more positive note, the tearful bass clarinet solo at 8'59'' sets the scene for an arresting finish: Dutoit, it must be said, chronicles the final pages, from carefree Russian folk-tune (a properly tentative flute) to frantic dance of death, expertly.
But expertise does not a great performance make, and the Symphonic Dances once more tell a tale of seductive sounds and unfulfilled promises. The playing is magnificent but what does it say to me: why does the haunting alto saxophone plaint sound so anonymous? Why was I not moved as I always am by the shimmering coda, with its glorious transformation of the First Symphony's principal subject? Dutoit glides elegantly through the second movement's haunted ballroom (luscious sounds here, particularly from the clarinets), but the most magical and sensuous moment of all virtually passes him by: I'm talking about the a tempo at 6'47'', where the waltz tune (in violins and cellos) insinuates its way back in—except that Dutoit insinuates nothing.
In the finale my feeling is that he registers the regret (the central lento assai is very fine) rather better than he does the demonic danse macabre. The dynamism is there, the drama is not. Rachmaninov's final exit (the Dies irae, as ever, on his tail) is ultimately a somewhat bloodless affair. Just compare Ashkenazy (Decca). In both works, he and Previn (EMI) still top my recommendations—Previn has the edge in the symphony, Ashkenazy in the Dances. Unfortunately, neither couple the two works together. That is Dutoit's only real advantage.'