Just listened to: a bunch of recordings of Tchaikovsky’s familiar symphonic poem Romeo and Juliet (1870/1880) as my inaugural part of a co-listening project with Travis. Of those, I enjoyed all of the following:
- Bernstein conducts NYPO as if Tchaikovsky had written the piece as the score to a 1950s movie.
- Muti conducts Philharmonia and Fischer conducts Budapest as if the composer had written the piece as the score to a 21st-century movie (which is weird in Muti’s case because he made the record in 1977).
- Abbado conducts Berlin as if Tchaikovsky had written the piece as the score of real-life, magical fairy tale.
- Doráti conducts LSO as if Tchaikovsky had written the piece so that Rite-of-Spring-era Stravinsky could conduct it (or eat it for breakfast).
- Pappano conducts Santa Cecilia as if Tchaikovsky had written the piece as an opera.
Again, all are worth hearing, but I enjoy the Abbado third-best, the Doráti second-best—because it’s just so different and exciting and snarly—and the Pappano the mostest. Because let’s face it: Romeo and Juliet is squarely the sort of story out of which operas are born. The hi-fi recording helps here, too, of course.)