Ahronovitch Conducts Nielsen

The Russian-Israeli conductor Yuri Ahronovitch (1932-2002) made only a few commercial records, although he was a most interesting musical personality.

Among those recordings was this 1981 live performance of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3 ("Sinfonia Espansiva") with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, transferred here from a Unicorn-Kanchana LP.

Ahronovitch

This is a well-judged, well-played version of Nielsen's wonderful symphony. Ahronovitch was known for his subjective interpretations, but there is little evidence here of that tendency, except for his slamming on the brakes before the symphony's final chord. Unicorn-Kanchana seemingly decided to set up its microphones in the last row of the hall, but the distant sonics are well balanced.

Both the audience and the orchestra were impressed. Unicorn includes four minutes of applause at the conclusion of the performance (which I have put into a separate track), and the orchestra serenades Ahronovitch with a "tusch", a type of musical salute heard occasionally at European concerts. This is the only commercial recording in my collection with such a fanfare, and I have to say it startled me the first time I heard it many years ago.

Ahronovitch, a pupil of Natan Rakhlin, became conductor of the USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra when he was only 32, holding that post until emigrating to Israel in 1972. Later he was chief conductor of the Cologne Gürzenich Orchestra and the Stockholm Philharmonic.

This is a later recording than I usually post, but I transferred it for another site, and decided to make it available to followers of this blog as well. I will also be transferring Ahronovitch's recording of Taneyev's Fourth Symphony, with the London Symphony.

NB - Several years ago I posted the first recording of Nielsen's third symphony, also made with the Danish Radio Symphony, and conducted by Erik Tuxen. I've newly remastered that recording, and it is now available via this post.