The comparisons between these three new issues of the Pathetique are all the more fascinating, for being in fair measure unexpected. What is unexpected about the Barbirolli is not so much the reading, which is characteristically gutsy, at once firm in purpose and passionate, but the sound. Inevitably the 1958 recording has a high tape hiss, and is limited in range, with violins often rough-sounding, but the EMI transfer has transformed what I remembered of this and other Halle Pye/Nixa recordings of that period. The sense of presence is vivid, and the sound is more than full and satisfying enough to let one enjoy the central strength of the interpretation. This was a period when, after its immediate post-war triumphs, the Halle was rather losing out to the London orchestras. String ensemble is not always perfect, but in its high-voltage electricity the playing has the stamp of vintage Barbirolli/Halle.
Electricity is just what—to my intense surprise—is largely missing from Muti's new Philadelphia recording. It has little of the biting intensity that marked his 1980 Philharmonia version for EMI (1/89—nla), which I hope will be reissued before long at mid-price. The new one brings a performance which—to put it kindly—is surprisingly relaxed. Next to all the others in this group of four versions (including Jansons on Chandos) this sounds like a studio run through, perfectly acceptable as a performance—though ensemble is well below the standard one expects of this superb orchestra—but relatively lacking the dramatic bite of involvement essential in this work. When in the first movement, the development is introduced on a sudden shattering fortissimo, Muti desperately whips up the tempo, but the result is gabbled rather than exciting. There is generally little to object to in Muti's actual interpretation, and though the recorded sound is less wide-ranging, with less body than that of either Jansons or Sinopoli, this is preferable to many of EMI's Philadelphia recordings. But it does make a disappointing start to Muti's latest Tchaikovsky series, and the Scriabin coupling perfectly illustrates what is lacking in the performance of the symphony. There Muti directs a performance white-hot with passionate intensity, yet masterfully controlled, with each section following inevitably in one great span. It is worth hearing the record for that, and I hope before long Le poeme de l'extase might be given a Scriabin coupling instead.
My third surprise comes with the Sinopoli, which is quite the most recommendable—and richest recorded—of all the many versions on the DG label. I rather expected a reading as idiosyncratic as Bernstein's (DG, 5/87) which was drawn out to almost an hour in length, but not at all. If one divides interpreters of this symphony into those who tend to press ahead in stringendo and those who tend to hold back in ritenuto, Sinopoli—again to my surprise after his Elgar Second (DG, 2/89)—is firmly in the former group. What is similar to that Elgar is the passion of the playing of the Philharmonia, recorded with the most satisfying opulence. So the necessary fluctuations in the great melody of the second subject have a natural, unselfconscious warmth, developing from gentleness, and the rising flute countersubject—eight bars before fig. E (track 1, 5'29'')—presses ahead in obedience to the Moderato mosso marking, with the mood more than usually carefree.
Sinopoli is not always as electric as Jansons in his fine Oslo reading, adopting slow basic speeds for the middle two movements, but sustaining them well, with the 5/8 rhythm of the second brought even closer than is common to the feeling of a waltz. In the march of the third movement, many will prefer Sinopoli's broader view, with a slight easing on the big swaggering fortissimo entries to Jansons's very fast, clean and clipped treatment. As with Jansons, the Adagio finale is kept moving, but Sinopoli allows himself more stringendo in the big melody of the second movement. Both of them incidentally keep the Andante giusto of the final coda moving steadily, where Muti draws it out extremely.
The big advantage the new Sinopoli has over the Jansons is that it is generously coupled with Romeo and Juliet. There Sinopoli's reading is not quite so spontaneous-sounding, with a hint of self-consciousness at the first entry of the big love theme, though with plenty of uninhibited passion on the later repeats. Predictably, the Barbirolli is more direct and thrustful, if less refined, with acid woodwind in the love theme. Yet here too it makes a generous coupling.'