Ah, the joys of the European subsidy system–yes, we get interesting projects recording unfamiliar music like Gouvy symphonies, but if these players really had to make a living playing in public, how long would they be able to call themselves the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern? It’s ridiculous, even in German (I checked with some of my German friends just to be sure). Sorry, but I just had to vent. From now on, they will be known as the DRPSK, pronounced “dripsk”.
The previous release in this series revealed a conservative but interesting composer. This composer is still conservative, and somewhat less interesting. The Sixth Symphony has a few good tunes, the trio of the scherzo especially, but is otherwise so predictable that most fans (if any) of, say, Max Bruch and his crew could hum the piece before hearing a note. The Sinfonietta is just blandly pretty–it features nice, unassuming music, and that’s about it. Jacques Mercier’s performances reveal both works in a positive light; he secures lively, alert playing from the Dripsk, and he’s very well recorded, but it just may be that one disc of Gouvy is enough. We’ll see.
