So can Kirill Petrenko cut it on record?
mainThe German label CPO has released three recordings it made a decade ago with the incoming chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. These are virtually the only evidence on record of what the shy and retiring conductor can do in symphonic reprtoire.
It’s my album of the week on sinfinimusic.com:
When the Berlin Philharmonic named its new chief conductor four months ago, Kirill Petrenko had not worked with the orchestra in three years. Russian-born and of Jewish extraction, he was known for intense opera conducting at the Komische Oper in Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival. Unlike past Berlin maestros, he had a low media profile and no record label. Last week, he renewed his contract with Bavarian State Opera, delaying his Berlin chiefdom to the end of the decade. Petrenko, 43, is letting Berlin know he does things his way.
Read more here.
I might have to go out and get them. I LOVE Asrael and A Summer’s Tale (especially the movement with the two English horns). Should be standard touring repertoire for the Czech Philharmonic.
I’d still go for Pesek or Behlohlavek.
There is an element of sheer perversity lurking in this post. An earlier post attempted to play God — make a mountain out of nothing whatsoever — re the renewal in Bavaria. A minor flood of comments made many salient points as to why this is a non-issue. To cherry-pick, it was pointed out that Karajan had followed a parallel path. That Petrenko’s renewal in Bavaria was no secret and discussed from the very point at which he emerged as the chosen candidate. But perhaps most telling, that Rattle doesn’t depart until 2018, so any delays or disruptions in Petrenko taking up his post in Berlin will be minimal, and in the music world just business as usual. But some people are incapable of learning, so here we are with the same nonsense all over again.
Records are dead, discs are useless, why re-edit old recordings, la la la la la…