Sad to report, this disc contains "
Hans Vonk 1942-2004 The Final Session." Sadder still, while the gifted Dutch conductor made many fine recordings over the years -- complete cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven and
Mahler stand out in a long discography -- his untimely death has unfortunately left posterity these three sloppily played and soupily conducted performances. While never one of the better Dutch orchestras, the Netherlands Radio Orchestra sounds here like one of the lesser Dutch orchestras. Its playing is pale and anemic in the Academic Festival Overture, vague and distracted in the Haydn Variations, and wayward and dissolute in the Alto Rhapsody. More disappointing is
Vonk's conducting. Compared with his usual polished but enthusiastic performances,
Vonk here sounds rough and, worse yet, sentimental. His Overture and Variations begin blustery and raw, but end weak and weary, while his Rhapsody starts depressed with alto Yvonne Naef's discouraged singing and ends despairingly with the entrance of the dispirited male chorus of the
Netherlands Radio Choir. Remember
Vonk for his
Mahler or his Beethoven, or, if you're daring, for his two discs dedicated to Dutch composer Diepenbrock, but skip this disc. PentaTone's sound is lucid yet lush.