A mouth-watering coupling on paper; generous measure, too (Teldec’s total timing is 79'11''). Previous offerings in Andrew Davis’s VW series have always featured exemplary production-values as well as state-of-the-art engineering from Tony Faulkner. Suffice to say, this latest issue sounds no less spectacularly natural than its predecessors. Unfortunately, I have some reservations about the actual performances.
Coming to this latest BBC SO account of Job so soon after reviewing Boult’s legendary 1946 recording with the same group probably tended to exaggerate its comparative shortcomings. However, having returned to Davis’s interpretation a number of times now, I still have mixed feelings. The “Introduction” portends great things: phrasing is shapely, dynamics are scrupulously observed, and the stately “Saraband of the Sons of God” unfolds with a moving simplicity and dignity. In “Satan’s Dance of Triumph”, however, Davis’s infectious, even jaunty energy rather fights shy of the music’s menace, malignancy even (surely the muted trumpets and trombones’ overwhelming ffff quotation of Gloria in excelsis Deo just before the close should convey more sense of bare-faced outrage than it does here?).
To my ears, tensions begin to falter from the third scene onwards, whereas under both Boult and Handley VW’s visionary musings hold one effortlessly in their thrall. In scene 4 (“Job’s Dream”), the nightmarish central portion attains an unwanted joviality, with no hint of terror at all. Granted, the organ entry in scene 6 is the seismic moment it should be, but the underlying pulse slackens dangerously for “Elihu’s Dance of Youth and Beauty”, where there are also a few self-regarding touches which fail to convince (the solo violin’s unmarked D harmonic at 0'28'', for example). I do love the way Davis brings out the distinctive originality of VW’s woodwind writing in the “Pavane of the Sons of the Morning” (which, sonically speaking, really does ‘open out’ magnificently), but I’d have preferred a greater body of string tone for the ensuing “Galliard” (which sounds uncomfortably weedy). Moreover, the compassion and humanitarian scope of the “Epilogue”, whose moving closing bars falls like some vast benediction on the listener, would, as yet, seem to elude these highly accomplished newcomers.
The Ninth, too, ultimately disappoints. For all Davis’s undisruptiveness and clear-headed logic, his reading never quite takes wing in the same way as do those by Slatkin or Handley (to name his two most recent rivals). The opening movement unfolds in slightly earthbound fashion, while the radiant secondary material of the succeeding Andante sostenuto is stickily handled both times round (it must be admitted that the hard-working BBC SO strings are no match for Slatkin’s Philharmonia players in terms of exquisite refinement and lustrous sheen). In the ghostly scherzo Davis’s straightforward approach works effectively enough (VW’s orchestration is so colourful and intriguing that this movement never fails to make an impact), but his conception of the finale doesn’t have the same imagination and effortless grip as Handley’s.
Rehearing Slatkin’s imposing account, it has a pristine, ever so slightly soft-grained quality about it which some may find a touch inappropriate; the questing grandeur of this astonishing score is, on the whole, better conveyed by Handley and the RLPO (coupled to an outstandingly eloquent Sixth). Both are, in the final resort, preferable to the present version.'