Boulez conducts Varèse
Pierre Boulez's Sony recordings of Varèse's music long ruled the roost until Riccardo Chailly'scomplete set with the Concertgebouw for Decca. This Chicago remake, for all its precise orchestral playing, doesn't challenge either of them. Both the Sony Boulez and Decca Chailly have a sense of enthusiasm and a feeling for the wildness with which these avant-garde works burst upon the scene in the 1920s.Amériques, for example, should knock your socks off, with its sirens piercing through the orchestral textures, but they're relatively tame on this expansive reading, in which Boulez seems to lavish more affection on the quiet opening section.Désertsis also more measured than it should be, the resulting precision bought at the cost of intensity. Virtually anything Boulez conducts is worth hearing, and this disc certainly reveals much about the scores, but hopes that this master of modern music would top his earlier recording aren't fulfilled.--Dan Davis