Tansman: Symphonies Vol. 4 (2009)

For this volume of his survey of the complete symphonies of Alexandre Tansman on Chandos, Italian conductor Oleg Caetani has switched from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, but the change is not all that noticeable. The first-rank provincial orchestra from Australia sounds remarkably like the first-rank provincial orchestra from Switzerland: amazingly polished from a technical point of view, but with little character from an interpretive point of view. Unfortunately, neither Caetani ... Read More

For this volume of his survey of the complete symphonies of Alexandre Tansman on Chandos, Italian conductor Oleg Caetani has switched from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, but the change is not all that noticeable. The first-rank provincial orchestra from Australia sounds remarkably like the first-rank provincial orchestra from Switzerland: amazingly polished from a technical point of view, but with little character from an interpretive point of view. Unfortunately, neither Caetani's interpretations nor Tansman's music show much character, either. Caetani is an excellent conductor with a great stick technique and an admirable sense of proportion, but he fails to find anything interesting in these four chamber symphonies. That may be because Tansman has not put much interest into them. Though clearly a gifted composer who mastered the dominant styles of 20th century modernist music, Tansman had little to say that could be considered original. One hears Honegger... Read Less