Tchaikovsky - Symphony 6 [Litton-Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra] Another wonderful playing experience while walking to Church, this is considered Litton's crowning achievement in his Tchaikovsky Symphony cycle, and today this just seemed an extra special experience in listening to this work again, nearly two months ago i listened to Pletnev conduct the work [20th December 2010], and this time i got more out of the Symphony, Litton seems to give more colours, the individual instruments sing out better, or was i just more in the mood and ready to channel it better?.
Andrew Litton is American, born in 1959, he is now 51 years old, and he made this recording in 1990, this comes from a re-issue of the original recording, on the Virgin Classics Ultraviolet series, black and white photos, some of them are a bit strange, but others are really creative, this one [by Caroline Molloy] shows a deserted room [possibly an old hospital], with a discarded bedspread, like i say, some of the pictures don't seem to have any bearing to the music on the disc, unless of course you feel that this work is somehow Tchaikovsky's 'Requiem', for he was dead nine days after its premiere!, and maybe the bed represents his deathbed, and the defunct accommodation his expiring!, or something like that.
On this listen it was the first movement that really hit me hard, it certainly had some really thrilling memorable moments, a great experience, i find it was the colours of the woodwinds and brass that really help it to stand out, and it has great architecture and power, it's a mamoth movement of nearly 20 minutes, and in the tragic and dark key of B Minor [the same as Schubert's Symphony 8], and it shares that 'sad yet uplifting' vibe too,
Here's Charles Dutoit conducting the first movement on YouTube.
