Three other great recordings
Semyon Bychkov
(conductor)
The most beautiful orchestral playing imaginable can be heard on Semyon Bychkov’s 2017 recording with the Czech Philharmonic, in which Decca’s state-of-the art recording captures every detail. It beggars belief that the orchestra’s musicians had not previously encountered the Manfred until Bychkov introduced them to it, but initial scepticism from them clearly became a labour of love. Choosing between Bychkov and Petrenko proved a headache: a model of restraint, Bychkov’s is the more measured and has the finest sound of all recordings; Petrenko’s is the more volatile and viscerally exciting. (Decca 483 2320)
Vladimir Jurowski
(conductor)
By 2006, when this recording was made, Vladimir Jurowski had established a great rapport with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – it shows in a live recording that is magnificent in all respects, and is particularly successful in the Finale. As with Petrenko’s recording, we aren’t drowned out in a welter of organ sound, and the enthusiastic response from the Royal Festival Hall audience reflects the excitement of the occasion. For similar thrills from a
close contemporary of Jurowski, Andris Nelsons’s 2013 CBSO account (Orfeo) would run this one close were it not for the conductor’s heavy, and distracting, intakes of breath. (LPO Live LPO-0009)
Mikhail Pletnev
(conductor)
Originally hand-picked by Mikhail Pletnev during the Glasnost era, the Russian National Orchestra has remained arguably Russia’s most outstanding symphony orchestra. As in his earlier 1992 recording for DG, Pletnev manages to maul the repeated string passage following the Finale’s opening flourish, but even so, this 2013 version for Pentatone is very impressive – he is quite a cool customer here, and takes a more classical approach than most. The recorded sound is also good, despite the remoteness of the horns. (Pentatone PTC 5186 387)
And one to avoid… Evgeny Svetlanov
(conductor)
There are two Manfred recordings by Evgeny Svetlanov available. In his live 1989 account with the Berlin Phil (on the Testament label), he ditches the organ-led final pages, substituting them with a barn-storming reprise of the Manfred theme. This ‘alternative’ ending is undoubtedly exciting and is greeted with audience approval, but it is not what Tchaikovsky wrote.