If I might first right a wrong. Rozhdestvensky's IMP Pickwick account of the Second Symphony inadvertently slipped through my net of comparisons in recent reviews of the new Kaspszyk (Collins Classics), Sanderling (Teldec) and Litton (Virgin Classics) versions, and, as one or two readers pointed out, his was indeed the rightful claimant to absolute completeness, being the first to include the lengthy exposition repeat. Collins Classics take note. Farberman's portentous account of the Symphony dates from 1978 and a very pallid impression it makes in such company—to say nothing of Previn (EMI) and Ashkenazy (Decca).
The first few pages are always revealing. Farberman is circumspect in his pacing; rigid and ungiving in the lush overlapping violin lines which herald the approach of the climax. An inelegantly turned first subject gives way to a brief but laboured animato, and sour oboe intonation ushers in the lovely second subject. From there on it's a long strenuous journey to the seismic development climax: the solo string passage in its wake might easily have strayed in from Parsifal.
Farberman's phrasing never moves. Like Sanderling (but without his technical expertise) he overburdens and drags the line. Texture is grey and unvaried, with the slow movement heavy and 'meaningful', but robbed of its radiance. Light and air are at a premium even in the scherzo and finale: the sinews have grown flabby in the former, the latter lumbers along, handicapped by some extremely dubious ensemble. Only the coda comes momentarily alight, Farberman sneakily hiking his violins up an octave during the big maestoso. I know of no precedent in this. If Rachmaninov himself had sanctioned the practice, I can't imagine that it would have escaped the notice of his disciple Ormandy—not with the lustrous Philadelphia strings at his elbow.
The strings remain, of course, the enduring glory of Ormandy's recordings. For a moment one almost forgets how savagely the Second Symphony is cut here, how deprived we are, for instance, of the scherzo's gorgeous second subject reprise (I still find it hard to believe that Rachmaninov could have sanctioned those cuts). For all its opulence, Ormandy's Third remains a less febrile, less quixotic, and less subtly nuanced reading than the composer's own (now an indespensible Pearl disc (CD) GEMMCO9414—to be reviewed later), but his First is an unqualified triumph right through from the grave imperial splendours of its first movement (sensational weight and attack from the strings in the fugal development) to the epic swagger and muscularity of the finale, culminating of course in that thrilling 'ride to the abyss', the mighty tam-tam crash like a sudden disintegration of the old order. The recordings have come up extremely well, but the price you pay for all three symphonies (and Vocalise) on two CDs is the Second Symphony split inconveniently across them. One final recap, then, on my current recommendations: Ormandy and Litton in the First Symphony; Previn and an inspired Litton in the Second; Previn or Ashkenazy (not forgetting the composer) in the Third.'