Josef Suk's Asrael Symphony has had a checkered fate on recordings. The 1952 version coupled Vaclav Talich's passionate interpretation with the Czech Philharmonic's intense playing, creating a performance of shattering emotional power in spite of monaural sound so cavernous it seemed as if the recording must have taken place in an airplane hanger in Antarctica. Vaclav Neumann's 1982 reading with the same orchestra essentially copied the tone and tenor of Talich's account, but with vastly less passion and intensity. The ...
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Josef Suk's Asrael Symphony has had a checkered fate on recordings. The 1952 version coupled Vaclav Talich's passionate interpretation with the Czech Philharmonic's intense playing, creating a performance of shattering emotional power in spite of monaural sound so cavernous it seemed as if the recording must have taken place in an airplane hanger in Antarctica. Vaclav Neumann's 1982 reading with the same orchestra essentially copied the tone and tenor of Talich's account, but with vastly less passion and intensity. The third Asrael, Libor Pesek's 1990 recording with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, is basically a better copy of Talich's than Neumann's, while the fourth, from 1991, with Jirí Belohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic, gets closer to Talich's greatness than Pesek, but still isn't all the way there. The fifth, Vladimir Valek's 1992 version with the Prague Philharmonic is fatally tedious, and the sixth, Evgeny Svetlanov's 1993 reading with the State Symphony Orchestra, is spectacularly...
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