A Summer's Tale Op.29 / The Enchanted Lake Op.62

"I quite enjoyed Petrenko's muscular way with A Summer's Tale but it didn't convince me. Recorded live at the Komischen Opera, Berlin in January 2004 – with a commendably quiet audience – it offers some aural punches and plenty of visceral excitement. These are qualities that Petrenko has in spades. What he doesn't yet possess is the ability to unfold long paragraphs with conviction – at least not here.

As so often it's not just a question of tempo, though I should note that he is consistently quicker in the longest movements than his Czech competitors. It's more a question of inflection and the relationships between passages. And in a big five-movement work such as this, that is vital.

He finds a forward moving incision in Voices of Life, the first part, and delivers a battering early on. The result is a superfluity of energy that has nowhere to dissipate. Compared with two stalwarts of the Suk discography, the 1957 Šejna and the 1984 Pešek – both with the Czech Philharmonic - we find that they both take time to unfold, to build up tension with inexorable power. They let the material resonate and detonate with intense focus. True, Šejna's recording has a bit of 1950s blare but his principals are more evocative in their solos, as are Pešek's. But Petrenko's account should not be overlooked because of some over-athletic gaucheries. He knows how to maximise the heat haze of Suk's orchestration in the Midday movement and he is strong on sectional discipline; this sounds very well rehearsed and thought through. Still, again, doubts nag away at me. It's all very languorous but where's the wit? Where's Šejna's charm and inflexion, his airy life, or Pešek's pawky wit?

And I'm sure it's not his nationality that leads me to say that the central movement sounds rather more like Mussorgsky than Suk. The Blind Musicians intermezzo is one of Suk's most infectious, droll and affecting delights but where with Šejna it lilts athletically, with Pešek somewhat less so, with Petrenko we get muted brown sonorities and a sense of expulsion and misery. Well, fair enough, perhaps, if that's how you see it. My greater problem is with Petrenko's smoothness – a Karajan-like efficiency that sometimes leads to blandness. The finale is the weakest of Petrenko's movements. It's difficult to corral this quarter of an hour movement but the answer is not to phrase without obvious affection or significance, which is what Petrenko does. He's heavy handed and matter-of-fact. Turn to Šejna and you will find atmosphere of another order entirely."
(MusicWeb Oct 2006)