Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3; Moussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition

These SACD multichannel remasterings sound amazingly fine and true to life, so much so that the standard stereo issues don't even begin to compare. The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony is a very good performance, though Edo de Waart improved on it still further both interpretively and sonically in his San Francisco remake. Still, the bracing opening movement and beautifully flowing Poco adagio linger sweetly in the mind, while an aptly sensational finale makes up for the slightly droopy scherzo. Indeed, aside from reticent timpani at the opening of the scherzo, audiophiles will find much to enjoy, particularly when organ and orchestra really get cranking in the finale.

The real treat here, though, is the excellent Pictures at an Exhibition, which is beautifully played and quite spectacularly recorded. Waart opts for generally swift tempos, not least in "The Great Gate of Kiev" where the closing pages bring a truly physical thrill as he presses forward in the final statement of the resplendent principal theme. Every detail of Ravel's marvelous orchestration registers with unobtrusive clarity, along with richly resonant bass and excellent orchestral positioning. The winds of the Rotterdam Philharmonic in "Tuileries" and the "Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells" uphold the great Dutch tradition of excellence in that department, while the brass section sounds nice and fat and suitably "Russian"--though without the edge (or, if you prefer, coarseness) of the true Russian orchestras. On both musical and sonic grounds, this is one of the finest productions that Pentatone has released thus far. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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Romantic Russia

"The program, recorded in 1966, includes some of the best performances available in the popular Russian repertoire. Solti was at the top of his form in the rousing opening number, Mikhail Glinka's Russlan and Ludmila overture, as stirring and energetic an interpretation as any ever made. Indeed, it's a wonder the LSO strings didn't either catch fire and burn or simply snap off the instruments, the affair is so impassioned. Then comes Modest Mussorgsky's prelude to Khovanshchina, a calm respite from the rigors of the preceding track." --classicalcandor.blogspot.com

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Mussorgsky: St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain, Etc

No work of Mussorgsky’s – even Mussorgsky’s – has a more tangled history than St John’s Night on the Bare Mountain, and the complexities are reflected in its recordings. A long and tortuous story must be cut short. In 1860, Mussorgsky told Balakirev that he planned a piece “on Mengden’s drama The Witches” (no one ever seems to have found a copy of this mysterious work). Rimsky-Korsakov, whose memory was not always reliable, claims in My Musical Life that in 1866-7 he had heard a version for piano and orchestra based on Liszt’s Totentanz (which Mussorgsky would not then have known). However, in 1867 Mussorgsky did write the orchestral Bare Mountain (which was first recorded by David Lloyd-Jones with the LPO for Philips, 6/72 – nla), but, 

dismayed by Balakirev’s withering comments, shelved it. Then, to the opera-ballet Mlada, commissioned in collaboration with Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui and Borodin, he contributed a scene, based on the orchestral piece and now lost, sometimes known as “The Sabbath of the Black Goat”.

This he adapted for the never-to-be-finished opera Sorochintsy Fair, for chorus and orchestra, as “The Young Peasant’s Dream” (or “Gritsko’s Dream”). Despite the title given it on the record (as above), it is this operatic vocal and choral scene which is here recorded. Based on it, Rimsky-Korsakov made the orchestral transcription which has been so widely performed and recorded (a good 50 recordings currently available). There is more to it than that; but all that need be added here is that there have been various versions of the opera: Cui (1917) and Tcherepnin (1923) took a hand, but the best known performing score is by Shebalin (1931), and his is the version of the Dream Scenes recorded by Zdenek Macal and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (Delos, 11/97). Further versions of the orchestral work that can be heard on record include those by Rene Leibowitz and, famously, Stokowski; there are others which depart in one way or another from Rimsky-Korsakov.

Abbado is a fine Mussorgsky conductor, as admirers of his Boris Godunov (Sony, 5/94) and Khovanshchina (DG, 11/90) know. He gives the piece a formidable charge of energy here, a quality less hectic and exhilarating than Macal but strong, potent and dynamic. It is a powerful piece, especially in the original operatic scene rather than in the more appealing Rimsky-Korsakov orchestral guise which we know so well. He also gives a gentle, evocative performance of the Khovanshchina Prelude depicting dawn over the River Moscow, and accompanies his singers well in the two scenes from the opera, with Kotcherga a gloomy Shaklovity and Tarasova powerfully conjuring up the spirits of darkness in one of Mussorgsky’s greatest arias. There is also a lively performance of the dance, and a vivid one of the Intermezzo which Mussorgsky half-pretended was symphonic but was really a lively response to a scene he witnessed of some peasants blundering through the snow. His imagination was always pictorial and dramatic rather than symphonic. --Gramophone Magazine

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Mussorgsky: Pictures At An Exhibition, Night on Bald Mountain, Choral Works

With scintillating virtuosity in Pictures and Abbado bringing out the Russian color in the gloriously sung choral works, there is nothing routine about anything here.

Abbado has recorded all this music before, but the new live DG recording is even more spectacular, especially in St John's Night on the Bare Mountain, the original version of Night on the Bare Mountain. Arthur Jacobs, who here provides the illuminating notes, suggests that the American word 'bald' is more faithful to the Russian than our term, 'bare'. Here it certainly brings vividly graphic orchestral playing. Abbado obviously relishes the odd grotesque spurts of colour from the woodwind, and the Mussorgskian ruggedness.

The composer's structural clumsiness is not shirked and the lack of the smooth continuity found in the Rimsky arrangement does not impede the sense of forward momentum; indeed at the close the Russian dance element is emphasized, rather than the sinister pictorialism. (Of course the luscious slow ending is not here at all--that was added by Rimsky.)

The choral pieces are gloriously sung and again Abbado brings out their Russian colour, especially in the glowing yet sinuous "Chorus of priestesses". Joshua is made to seem a minor masterpiece with its lusty opening (hints of Borodin's Polovtsians) and its touching central solo ("The amorite women weep"). This is most eloquently sung by Elena Zaremba and the theme is then movingly taken up first by the women of the chorus and then the men, before the exultant music returns. The performance of Pictures at an Exhibition, like the choral items, gains from the spacious ambience and sumptuous overall textures. It is not, perhaps, an electrifying performance, but it is dramatic in its contrasts and very beautifully played. The refinement and colour of the evocation, so characteristic of Abbado, is most touching in "The old castle", while "Tuileries" is gently evoked with a flexibly fluid control of tempo. "Bydlo" opens and closes mournfully, yet reaches a strong, positive immediacy as it finally comes close. The chicks dance with dainty lightness; then the hugely weighty lower orchestral tutti and bleating trumpet response of "Samuel Goldenberg" demonstrate the extraordinary range of tone this great orchestra can command.

After the scintillating virtuosity of "Market Place at Limoges" the sonorous Berlin brass makes a tremendous impact in "Catacombe" and Abbado's tonal and dynamic graduations are characteristically astute; then 'following a ferociously rhythmic "Baba-jaga" he steadily builds his three-dimensional "Great Gate at Kiev", losing none of the grandeur of the gentle contrasts of the intoned chorale, with the tam-tam splashes at the end satisfyingly finalizing the effect. A most enjoyable concert: there is nothing routine about anything here.

-- Gramophone [2/1995]

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