Double double. (The Music).

Here we go again, comparing two competing recordings of large-scale orchestral music; in this case, one of the original large-scale orchestral music compositions, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. Many issues ago, we compared an older (1991) Telarc recording (Telarc CD80271) featuring David Zinman leading the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to a newer DG recording conducted by Pierre Boulez. As I recall, we split our recommendation, with TL favoring the Boulez while I opted for the Zinman. We thought it might be interesting to compare the venerable Zinman Telarc (which I would not be surprised to see reappear as a mid-price issue on Telarc) with the new Telarc recording (CD-80578, and there is also a dual-layer CD/SACD version, SCAD-60578), this one featuring Paavo Jarvi leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

As always, Tom and I have refrained from discussing these two recordings with each other and have written our remarks entirely independently. Because this is an even-numbered issue, Tom will lead off with his comments and then I will present things from my point of view.

TL: Many of my favorite CDs are on the Telarc label, and this Symphonie Fantastique conducted by David Zinman is one of them. Its privileged status occurred over time, even though I'm constantly wavering between it and Pierre Boulez' relatively recent version on DG. Still, it would take quite a superb version of this piece to unseat this champion.

The Telarc Zinman/Baltimore SO is so good that it's tough to single out a single reason why. Maybe it's the transparency of the solo instruments, which have an almost physical presence within a huge soundstage. Maybe it is the seemingly unparalleled depth of this soundstage. On the other hand, perhaps it is the excellent conducting of David Zinman and the near magical response by his orchestra that leads one through this tone poem's tale. But in all likelihood it is because this CD combines all these elements and more.

So along comes another version of this piece on the esteemed Telarc label, with the fabulous Cincinnati SO led by their new musical director, Paavo Jarvi. I'll probably never know the behind-the-scene reasons why they chose this piece to usher in the Jarvi era of the CSO, or if it were entirely the record label's choice. There must have been thousands of other candidates. It is doubtful that the folks at Telarc released this CD just so those with subscriptions to the CSO's season or those living in the state of Ohio could buy it. There has to be more to it than that justify recording this piece done by countless others, not to mention Telarc's own version with the Zinman and the Baltimore SO. Perhaps sales of the Zinman CD have declined to a level that warranted a new release of this masterpiece--it has been ten years, after all. But this really isn't the place to have this discussion; it is to judge this new version against the standard set by Maestro Zinman.

So, can I overcome my biases and pick an objective "winner"? In all honesty, probably not entirely. Nevertheless, after repeated listenings I've determined the following:

The timings of each movement are almost identical other than the Baltimore SO's slightly quicker pace in third movement; an Adagio titled Scene aux champs (Scene in the Country). Yet its slightly faster tempo is indicative of Zinman's spirited approach vs. Jarvi's comparative reading--even if the timings on the rest of the CD are essentially the same. Yet Jarvi gives the impression that he has broken each phrase of not only this movement, but also the entire piece into discrete sections that sound to me like they are detached from the previous or following phrase. It's as if they rehearsed this piece in sections, and then connected them for the performance. Please, I hope one takes this in the context that judged on its own this is a fine CD. And I know, my observations are ...