This is the seventh collection of performances originally broadcast on Netherlands Radio through which the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has traced its history. The first covered 1935 to 1950; subsequent sets have been devoted to single decades, and the latest brings the story up to date. In 2004, Mariss Jansons followed Riccardo Chailly as the orchestra's musical director, so these discs document a transitional period, though one in which the RCO's stature as arguably the world's greatest orchestra never seemed compromised, and throughout this set it's the astonishing consistency of the orchestral playing that is most vivid.
Though there's a high proportion of 20th-century repertoire, the works range chronologically from Mozart (the Jupiter Symphony) conducted by Iván Fischer and Haydn (Symphony No 97) under Nikolaus Harnoncourt to Daniel Harding conducting Thomas Adès's Asyla and George Benjamin conducting Wolfgang Rihm's Marsyas, but regardless of the conductor or the repertoire, the depth and eloquence of the strings, the quick-witted brilliance of the woodwind and the rounded security of the brass are unfailing. Naturally, there are performances by Chailly (Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and Oedipus Rex) and Jansons (suites from Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, two of his party pieces, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony), as well as a couple by their predecessor, Bernard Haitink, while the list of guests is a roster of the world's leading conductors.
The result is some remarkable music-making, with the tone set on the first disc by Mark Elder's tingling account of Janáček's symphonic poem Taras Bulba. In Pohjola's Daughter and the Fifth Symphony respectively, Colin Davis and Paavo Berglund reveal very different but equally effective approaches to Sibelius; Kurt Masur's handling of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony, with Sergei Leiferkus as the baritone soloist, is unsparingly confrontational. Pierre Boulez presents a typically lucid reading of Webern's Op 6 Orchestral Pieces, while Fabio Luisi has the matchless Anna Larsson as his contralto soloist in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. There are a few disappointments – Jansons' choppy Beethoven 9 is one – but the rest is a joy.
