The first point worth making is that the Royal Philharmonic strings sound more secure, more lustrous and more tonally distinctive here than on most of their recent discs, a qualitative leap that is due in no small part to Daniele Gatti’s positive influence. Bartok’s scrupulously crafted Divertimento offers plenty of scope for textural contrast, primarily in the first movement’s dramatic alternation of tutti and solo, but also in the ghostly pianissimos that haunt the Molto adagio (note also Gatti’s stealthy handling of those nightmare crescendos) and the lunging fortissimos in the same movement, with stunned piano phrases sleep-walking in their wake. Noteworthy detail emerges almost as a matter of course – vividly trilling sforzando violas at bar 55 in the finale, gipsy-style slides in the little violin cadenza at 3'16'' and much subtle colouring elsewhere. The second violins’ fractionally delayed pp entry at the start of the Molto adagio sounds like a telling rhetorical gesture and my only quibble concerns a certain lack of raw energy.
The Concerto for Orchestra has many points in its favour. The opening Andante non troppo is delicately phrased, and note how sensitively the violins accompany the clarinet at 6'39''. Bassoons audibly pepper the texture at 4'43'' into the “Giuoco delle coppie” (a particularly effective piece of characterization) and the burbling woodwinds at the start of the “Elegia” recall the damp, cloistered world of Bluebeard’s Castle (the forte restatement of the first movement’s principal violin theme – for example, at bar 34, or 2'13'' – is immensely powerful). Gatti takes the slowest of Bartok’s metronome options for the beginning of the finale, wisely I think given that he achieves clear articulation, and the tempo for the second movement is more or less on a par with Boosey & Hawkes’s 1993 ‘revision’ of crotchet=94.
Had the performance been less attentive to minutiae, I would have worried less about minor imperfections. I am thinking in particular of the woodwind writing at bar 122 in the first movement (4'18'') which wants for clarity, and certain other passages where the aural ‘lens’ isn’t well enough focused. Also, I sometimes sensed excessive caution, especially in the finale, where the movement’s fugal core (4'23'' and with nicely pointed woodwinds) needs to dance, to lilt more. Incidentally, I was glad that Conifer programmed Bartok’s original ending to the Concerto (a more abrupt alternative) after the Divertimento – as a sort of instructive curio – rather than on the heels of the main performance, which would have sounded silly.
A musicianly production, then, well prepared, warmly recorded and full of telling interpretative observation, though when it comes to the Concerto, not quite on a par with ‘the best of the rest’ (Reiner, Blomstedt, Rattle and Dorati constitute my personal ‘top quartet’). One would like to think that there will be more RPO/Gatti recordings from the same source – and I am confident that the happy augury of this coupling signals even greater achievements in the future.RC