On track: Taking it easy on the heartstrings

By WILLIAM DART

A few years ago I was distressed to find two acquaintances scurrying away from the Town Hall during the interval lest their sensitivities be sullied by the frank emotionalism of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony.

Neeme Jarvi's new recording of the work with Sweden's estimable Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra would be the perfect corrective for such jaded individuals.

There is no flabby rhetoric here, even when Tchaikovsky is most determined to tug heartstrings. The open-weave colours of the first few pages are caught with the precision of chamber music.

While some interpretations heap grand statement upon grand statement, Jarvi taps into the spirit of the dance - a transition theme in the first movement might have slipped out of the Nutcracker.

The 5/4 "waltz" has more than the expected lilt, with the BIS engineers highlighting woodwind flutters as few recordings do. And the finale seems more poignant than ever through Jarvi's unmannered approach.

By way of a bonus you have a first-class performance of the composer's underappreciated Francesca da Rimini.

Rachmaninov's Second Symphony can be one gargantuan emotionfest and, as concert hall performances can reveal, a wilt-inducing hour if the players' hearts are not in it.

There is no need to worry with Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra. A terse opening creates a sense of underlying menace and the general leanness of the sound means the Russian composer's big theme is all the more effective when it unfolds.

Although there have been faster accounts of the second movement (Previn's 1966 RCA recording manages it in two minutes less than Fischer), the Hungarian conductor creates the illusion of speed through crisp articulation and dynamics to match.

The slow movement blooms at just the right rate to just the right intensity and the finale is emphatically allegro vivace and not the adagio vivace listed in the booklet. The bonus is a Vocalise that, thanks to Channel Classics' special five-microphone recording, puts the listener on the conductor's podium and is especially thrilling when woodwind and strings intertwine in this passionate melody.

* Tchaikovsky, Symphony No 6/Francesca da Rimini (BIS, SACD 1348); Rachmaninov, Symphony No 2 (Channel, Classics SA 21698)