Tchaikovsky - Capriccio Italien [Dutoit-Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal]It's good to have a collection of famous Tchaikovsky pieces on one disc, and this is a nice programme, i hear the Marche Slave and the Capriccio Italien far too infrequently, and what rousing pieces they are, i have a tendency to get lost amongst his Symphonies and Violin Concerto, and maybe you can throw his Piano Trio in there as well, i'm glad that this disc forced me to listen to Capriccio Italien again, because it really is a wonderful work.
Charles Dutoit is Swiss, now 75 years old, he was the main Conductor for the Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal for a quartet of a century [1977-2002], and he made some wonderful recordings in that time, mainly for Decca, and the sound is superb, he made this recording in 1985, the booklet front cover has a military theme to it, a painting by Christian Sell called 'Attack by Prussian Uhlans, the Franco-Prussian War', a detail of a really nice painting, and very fitting.
The opening trumpet fanfare is wonderful, but it soon branches out into a full brass fanfare [0:00-0:42], and it's the brass march / beat right afterwards that i so love [0:42+], it gives it such a military feel, plus it's not constant, but broken like morse code [0:42-2:07], the opening fanfare returns [2:55+], but instead of a brass march right afterwards, it's now played on the lower strings [3:11-4:08], Tchaikovsky gives us a great variety of ideas, and next up is a waltz in a lighter mood, a certain oompah feel to it, with glockenspiel etc, a real twirl the baton / partner waltz, there's even a serenade of trumpeters, like something out of a Mexican Western!, it's certainly a brass paradise, and yes right at the end there's a finale [13:07+], where all the orchestra comes together in a glorious forte.
Here's Jiri Belohlavek conducting the Capriccio Italien on YouTube.
