I tend to feel my head spinning
a bit when another Svetlanov box lands on my doormat. His widow
Nina has brought out a series of extensive composer-based boxes,
Melodiya has excavated numerous issues, and Warner is doing
vast business as well. We live in voluminous but often duplicatory
times, a state of affairs not helped by the notorious inexactitude
that seems to have fallen, like an Iron Curtain, over a number
of these reissues.
I’m afraid I’m going
to cut and paste a number of my individual reviews that happen
to relate to these items because pace Brilliant’s customary
claim very few, if any of these recordings is live. They’re
all, so far as I can see, part of the commercial canon. And
on that point I would like to nominate a brave, catalogue-minded
soul to try to compile a Svetlanov discography so that we mortals
can keep track, with confidence, of the plethora of material
now flooding the market. Either that or I will use my standard
default position that these are all USSR Symphony/Bolshoi or
Grand Symphony Melodiyas.
As for the first
disc of the ten, attention will naturally fall on the unfinished
Third Symphony of Borodin [see Melodiya MEL CD 10 00155], of
which two movements exist. With his sense of dynamism, colour
and a fairly elastic control of tempi Svetlanov proves a memorable
exponent of the symphonic torso. The winds are especially beguiling
in their plangency and feeling in the opening movement. The
second is dynamic, rhythmically virile. The brass,
without becoming coarse or blatant, lend their masculine
surety to the proceedings, but there’s real affection in the
phrasing of the strings. There are no half measures in this
kind of playing; it’s bold, powerful, full of feeling and more
often than not hard to resist. The same composer’s First Symphony
[also on Melodiya MEL CD 10 00154] was recorded in 1983 and
has some very prominent winds. Partly this is a result of a
rather one-dimensional recording but I must say it didn’t overly
concern me, so alive and vibrant is the playing. Svetlanov is
on fiery rhythmic form; as ever with him brass is really brassy
and slightly braying, though never as much as when he directed
the Bolshoi band. The vivacious and decidedly Mendelssohnian
Scherzo responds well to this kind of incisive but never over-pressed
playing but the highlight of the performance is surely the burnished
slow movement. The autumnal and verdant phrasing – with middle
string voicings rising and cresting with arching eloquence –
is most distinguished. So too is the oboe principal’s playing
and the felicitous generosity of the music making in general.
Don’t overlook the nippy brass and characterful winds in the
briskly accented finale.
Disc two has a lot
of Glazunov. You will find an extensive collection of the music
of the composer on the SVET label (see review).
The Overture Solennelle
in D major is punchy and vital whilst the Lyrical Poem
is pliant and full of bel canto lyricism.
Cortčge Solonel in D major is full of imperial splendour. Balakirev’s
First Symphony has made a recent appearance on Regis RRC
1131 where it’s coupled with the symphonic poems Russia
and Tamara. The Symphony receives a folklorically evocative
and drivingly intense reading – biting trumpets and curvaceous
string choirs to the fore. As for the two Rimsky items in this
third disc one simply sits back and admires the rhythmic brio
of the Cracovienne from Pan Voyevoda or
the veiled warmth of the Nocturne, with its little reminisce
of Vltava at the end. The following Mazurka is
wittily suggestive. The suite from the Snow Maiden
is short but terrific. The bird-calls, the lithe exciting
phrasing and string weight, the colossal personality … all this
makes for twelve minutes of intoxicating fun.
You can find both these works and a whole phalanx of
Rimsky recordings on SVET 57-009-1/3, a six-disc set.
Disc four sports
one of Svetlanov’s famous traversals of Rachmaninoff’s Second
Symphony. He left several behind but this one can also be found
on, for instance, SVET 04981-6 which is another bulky single-composer
box. As for the Second; good news; it’s passionate. Bad news;
it’s cut. Getting it in at just under
fifty-four minutes means a lot of jettisoning. I think this
is the 1968 Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra performance issued back
in the late 90s on a Melodiya twofer. Whichever it is it sounds
suitably adrenalin-enriched but also, because of the slow movement
and other cuts in the finale, somewhat perfunctory in places
and disfigured both by the cuts and by added percussion. Certainly
next to Svetlanov’s "Last Testament" recording for
French Warner which I recently reviewed it’s badly eclipsed.
The fifth disc is
given over to Glinka. The incidental music to Prince Kholmsky
allows one to appreciate the noble side of Glinka’s imagination
– try the Entr’acte to Act II – as well as his deft skill
at characterisation of which the slightly pomposo feel of the
Act IV Entr’acte is a classic example. As for Ivan
Susanin most of it, as is the case of Kholmsky, is
contained in the SVET Glinka box [38-003 1/3 – three CDs] which
has a little more material than this Brilliant box. This fifth
disc also sports some waltzes and polonaises from Tchaikovsky,
Nápravník and Arensky - talking of whom you’ll find the complete
Suite No.3 on SVET 003 03-3.
I suppose Miaskovsky
admirers will want to know about CD6, which contains two performances.
The first is of Symphony No.22 in B minor Op.54 Symphonic
Ballad composed in 1941. This gripping performance is the
same one that graced Melodiya and EMI-Melodiya transfers and
which can currently be found in the Svetlanov-Warner box set
of the complete symphonies [Warner Classics 2564 69689-8] though
the Warner is the better transfer. Its companion Symphony No.25
in D flat major is not the same as the Warner issue. It was
recorded considerably earlier, back in 1957, eight years after
the work’s revision. The soaring lyricism, with vibrant playing
and interpretation, is significantly tauter than it was later
to become and Miaskovskians will want to hear this earlier,
more near-the-point-of-origin recording if they can.
Boris Parsadanian’s
Second Symphony has appeared before now on Revelation Records
RV10109. He was an Armenian seemingly steeped in Shostakovich
– keening, piercing, jagged string lines and a brittle, tense
atmosphere. There’s an off-beat brusque scherzo and a driven,
stricken, military finale. Alexandra Pakhmutova’s 1971 Concerto
for Orchestra in E major is another terse, biting work, urgent,
a touch Shchedrin like, and often uncooperative – a good work,
superbly performed. She was a Secretary of the Soviet Composers’
Union for a time, an ambiguous figure, and reportedly Brezhnev’s
favourite composer – which seems pretty unlikely considering
the tough stance adopted here.
Arkady Mazaev’s symphonic poem The Krasnodonains is very
closely recorded, all the better to catch its surging, gritty
power which alternatives resonantly with pellucid lines for
the folkloric clarinet. This is an exciting novelty that even
seasoned Svetlanov-watchers will probably never have encountered.
Boiko’s Second Symphony
was on Revelation Records RV10105. It’s couched in a post-Rachmaninoff-meets-Khachaturian
way. It’s a tonal treat, effulgent and full of spirited tunes
with a knap sack full of Tchaikovskian ardour in the long, slow
finale. Try the Imperial brass in the central movement and savour
the energy levels of a work that should be far better known
than it is. Peter’s Chimes is bold, blatant and not always
too serious, though afflicted by annoying fade-outs, whereas
Symphony No.3 is different again. It’s not entirely dissimilar
to the Second Symphony but has a greater sense of acidity. There’s
a very ardent chorus and a vaguely Semitic cast to some of the
presumably Armenian melody lines. The folklorically saturated
solos are evocative and add strongly to the work’s character
and melos.
Svetlanov was himself
a composer. Daugava – symphonic poem is almost defiantly
old-fashioned – coursing with Lett folk themes, Tchaikovsky,
bitingly blaring brass (of course) and skirling "School
of 1905" strings. A touch of acerbity comes via Prokofiev
but the Big Tune is defiantly Svetlanov’s own; a good one too.
The Siberian Fantasy was co-written with Yakushenko.
It has Miaskovsky-like nobility and gravity of utterance with
an especially attractive mazy, meandering section complete with
a prominent role for the solo violin. Pictures of Spain is
an Iberian Rhapsody with a powerful role for the solo clarinet
and elsewhere some unashamedly virtuosic old school panache
for the band. Svetlanov really lets rip with Andalusian fire
here, in a broadly Lalo-esque sort of way. The Symphony is one
of his best-known works and he promoted it in his concert touring,
not always to the delight of promoters and agents. The predominant
influences are Rachmaninovian lyricism, overlaid with Shostakovich-like
march rhythms and a vein of Miaskovsky-like melancholy and occasional
dynamism. There’s a film music aura to the light-footed scherzo
and alternately portentous and becalmed warmth in the slow movement.
The Shostakovich influence is most marked in the finale before
we arrive at the bell-chime Mussorgskian triumphalism of the
final measures. There is a large conspectus of Svetlanov-conducts-Svetlanov
performances on SVCO 001/4-004/4 [4 CDs] but I’m not convinced
there is any overlap. I wonder if this Brilliant recording of
the Symphony might be one of its earlier performances.
Queries and conundrums
aside this box offers often coruscating and winning performances
of standard and novel repertoire. There are some palpable misses,
and given the state of the Svetlanov discography one would sympathise
with those who baulked at another confusing collection of often
reissued and sometimes indifferently recorded material. But
there are some outstanding things here if you know where to
look.
Jonathan Woolf
