Saint Saens
Organ Symphony and other works
Maazel/Pittsburgh Sony  53979

Respighi
Pines/Fountains/Festivals
Maazel/Pittsburgh  Sony 66843

Man, it's middle-aged-man-put-on-spandex-and-jog-without-a-shirt HOT here
in California today--and only the beginning....

Ahhhhh:  the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and Respighi's Pines of Rome--I
never get tired of these pieces, but a refreshing was in order.  (Yes, I
know--I still don't have any Lees, no Xenakis; and I *should* be taking
time to digest Boulez's "Please Begone Please," which gathers dust in my
collection....)

It started with the Organ Symphony.  I was intrigued by reports about
the sound quality of Sony's Pittsburgh/NY recording with Maazel, but I've
always shied away from it because the organ was added on 3(!) years later,
and Maazel can be less than inspired sometimes.  Well:  recording and
performance are undeniably exciting--I've never heard such a tight but
earth-shaking organ sound; and yes, the recording is so clear and *serves
the music so well* that one can sit back and surrender himself to the
music.  (This is why I went out and bought the Sony/Maazel Respighi right
after.) I guess I can tolerate knowing that the organ was dubbed in later
much more easily than if it were voice or piano tacked on.  The frisson is
still there.  Frisson is the love-child of *breathing* instruments, and an
organ doesn't breathe.  (Yes, a piano breathes--there's much more immediacy
between player and instrument.)

Have I heard many other performances of the Symphony? Yes.  Too many,
but not all and that's OK.  One can love his mate with authority without
having loved the whole world.  (I read somewhere that, for the most part,
we love *things* for the sum of their parts, yet this is not so when we
love people:  we choose certain attributes that are important to us,
even if it means overlooking some glaring, and perhaps more numerous
deficiencies.  His or her whole may not be greater than the sum of his or
her parts, but the parts come together in a way that creates a distinctive
and irreducible whole that attracts us.  So do we "love" a performance
as a thing or as a person? For me, it's more like "loving" a person:
Sinopoli's gratifying ability to get his orchestras to "breathe," for
instance, is irresistible in slow mov'ts, but resistible in allegros,
but I judge (and take) the performance as a "whole" because I like the
conductor.) And of course there are conductors who excel in everything.
Or do they?

Where was I.  Oh:  With Sony/Maazel's Pines/Fountains/Festivals it was
the same thrill--complete confidence in the recorded sound and an almost
top-notch performance.  I have lived with Muti's Philadelphia recording
on EMI, but the sound and performance is so pile-driving.  Muti's is
thrilling, yes; but fatiguing in the end.  Are recordings everything? No,
and we have people on the sidelines armed with wax cylinders waiting to
pelt those who have strayed to remind us that this is so.  The Maazel
performance is just ever so slightly unidiomatic, but not distractingly
so, (the off-stage trumpets employ vibrato upon their first
entrance--strange--must have mis-read "march" for "mariachi"); otherwise,
the orchestral swagger and heft won me over.

Take my word on the Saint Saens though, as long as you like like the finale
on the slow side, I can't imagine anyone not being bowled over by this one.

John Smyth, whose frequency of posting is inversely proportional to the
quality of his love life.