HOLST: The Planets; MATTHEWS: Pluto, the Renewer; SAARIAHO: Asteroid 4179: Toutalis; PINTSCHER: Towards Osiris; TURNAGE: Ceres; DEAN: Komarov’s Fall; The Making of The Planets & Asteroids – Rundfunkchor/Berlin Philharmonic/ Sir Simon Rattle – EMI Classics

by | Nov 13, 2006 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

HOLST: The Planets; MATTHEWS: Pluto, the Renewer; SAARIAHO: Asteroid 4179: Toutalis; PINTSCHER: Towards Osiris; TURNAGE: Ceres; DEAN: Komarov’s Fall; The Making of The Planets & Asteroids (video) –  Rundfunkchor Berlin/Berlin Philharmonic/ Sir Simon Rattle – EMI Classics Enhanced CD 69690 2 2 (2 CDs: 57:24, 37:27) ****:

Rattle told the EMI A&R people he would only record The Planets again if they could open it out and include not only Pluto but the asteroids and other heavenly portraits.  Bully for him, because this is much less of a yawner as a result. The standard planets version of Holst’s masterpiece is played with great gusto and of course superb intonation and phrasing by the Berlin players. Some of the movements which tend to sound a bit moldy in some performances – such as the British-sounding Jupiter movement – here seem fresh and exciting. I don’t know when Colin Matthews composed his Pluto movement – I presume it was before the sphere recently lost its status as a planet, or it may not have seemed to warrant his effort.

However, two asteroids were felt worth the effort and they are heard on  disc 2 of this set. Both sound serialized and quite alien to Holst’s accessible suite.  Towards Osiris is a bit more interesting with its atmospheric qualities (I know, space has no atmosphere…) The last piece – Komarov’s Fall – was written in memory of the first person to die in space. The Russian cosmonaut died when his Soyuz I spacecraft reentered the earth’s atmosphere in 1967.

I had thought record labels were giving up on Enhanced CDs, but this one has the best Enhanced portion I have seen on a CD, and it runs over ten minutes. Displayed as a widescreen image on my 20-inch monitor, it was designed around conductor Rattle speaking of the album’s concept and some of the new works which he added to Holst’s suite. My only disappointment about this package is that since EMI seems to have abandoned SACD, this wonderful collection of spacey music is not being offered with the option of communicating proper musical space via surround sound.

 – John Sunier
 

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