ASRAEL SYMPHONY SUMMER'S TALE

Interest in conductor Kirill Petrenko has naturally increased since the announcement that he would be taking over from Simon Rattle as Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic, so it was smart of CPO to box up their series of tone poems by Joseph Suk, led by Petrenko with the orchestra of the Komischen Oper Berlin. Interestingly, his discography to date is very sparse: this set, the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto on Channel Classics, and one or two other items. We are very, very far from the time when conductors were chosen at least partly on the basis of their bringing a major label contract in tow. Maybe this is a good thing, at least to the extent that musical considerations receive greater weight in the selection process. Petrenko’s Suk is very good, for the most part, but there is a lot of competition in this repertoire and these versions are not first choices. The Asrael Symphony is well paced, exciting, and aptly intense. It’s not Petrenko’s fault that the orchestra is no