This is my Tchaikovsky 'record of the year' and I am not a bit surprised, for I heard Sian Edwards conduct Francesca da Rimini at a concert in Preston last year and the performance had me sitting on the edge of my seat. The reading is not only instinctively right, but also suggests knowledge of great recordings of this work from the past. The choice of tempos and the control of the music's emotional ebb and flow was then, and is now, very impressive indeed. Moreover, she has that rare gift of being able to work in the recording studio as though in front of an audience. The whole programme here has the concentration and communication of live music-making.
The 1812 Overture is a joy, the lower strings at the opening poised, the allegro exciting and sharply articulated with the secondary material nicely contrasted. The woodwind tune has a nice touch of folksy Russian nostalgia and the broadly contoured violin melody sings out spaciously. Then, the coda/climax is superbly managed after the horns prepare the way arrestingly in one of Tchaikovsky's most famous pedal sequences. The ritenuto as the heavy brass take over is majestically sonorous, and the introduction of the famous Russian hymn is gloriously resonant, with cannon worthy of the charge of the Light Brigade. Congratulations are due here to Andrew Keener and Mr Bear (Mike Clements) for achieving such a sympathetic balance: so much depends on the engineering, and the last chord from the orchestra has a thrilling depth.
Romeo and Juliet is equally successful, with the pacing perfectly judged: how well the Friar Lawrence chorale sounds on the woodwind against the pizzicato strings. The performance is admirably structured: not too much adrenalin too soon, with the great love theme ushered in very naturally. When the climax comes it is worth waiting for; riveting in its excitement, the clash of swords grippingly tangible, the Lawrence chorale adding power and weight. The coda has a proper sense of tragedy, the final chords separated and forceful.
After that, the Marche slave is wonderfully high spirited. The piquantly scored middle section abounds with colour, the horn syncopations nicely placed. The coda, taken fast, brings real exhilaration and a sense of Slavonic temperamental ardour. Francesca da Rimini comes last and rightly so, for nothing could follow the emotional desperation of its close, reminiscent of Beecham's old Columbia 78 version, yet with wild clashes of the tam-tam not drowning the dissonance of Tchaikovsky's tumultous cadence. The tam-tam gives a doom-laden edge to the very opening bar and then—like Stokowski—Sian Edwards moves the work's introductory section forward strongly and passionately. Francesca's own hesitant entry on the clarinet is quite melting, and the string response wonderfully tender. The whole middle section, with Tchaikovsky's scoring at its most inspired, is beautifully played by the Liverpool wind soloists. When the strings take up the theme it soars gloriously and leads naturally into the great polyphonic climax, before the illicit lovers are discovered, slain and cast into the whirlwinds of Dante's Inferno, where they are fated to remain in an eternal unconsumated embrace! Powerful imagery and marvellously depicted here.'