MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

 

Buy through MusicWeb for £40 postage paid.
Musicweb Purchase button

 

 

Sergei TANEYEV (1856-1915)
CD1
Concert Suite for Violin and Orchestra Op.28 (1909) [44:43] ¹
CD2
Symphony No.4 in C minor Op.12 (1898) [41:37]
Apollo’s Temple in Delphi [5:56]
CD3
Cantata No.2 ‘At the Reading of a psalm’ Op.36 (1915) [63:37] ²
CD4
Alexander KASTALSKY (1856-1926)
Brotherly Prayer for the Dead (1915) [69:21]
Andrei Korsakov (violin) ¹
Ludmila Belobragina (soprano), Lyubov Aleshchenkova (mezzo soprano), Evgeni Vladimirov (bass) ²
USSR TV and Radio Large Chorus and Symphony Orchestra/Evgeny Svetlanov
rec. Moscow 1977-90
SVET 93-96/4 [4 CDs: 44:43 + 47:16 + 63:37 + 59:21]
Experience Classicsonline


 

Booklet gripes are semi-endemic among reviewers, especially (perish the thought) those for whom a booklet gripe can consume the greater part of a review. I’ve avoided too many gripes when it doesn’t materially affect the listening experience but I’m duty bound, for obvious reasons, to note that this four CD set, the latest of my Svetlanov tranche, fails to mention the names of any of the soloists or choir. The three solo vocal performers in the Kastalsky can consider themselves hard done by but the late violinist Andrei Korsakov even more so, as he was a fluent and expressive soloist too little heard on disc. For the record I’ve added their names to the head note.

Andrei Korsakov (1946-1990) is the soloist in a work that’s even now still considered David Oistrakh’s property, the Concert Suite by Taneyev, the composer who takes the lion’s share of this box. It’s a work that Lydia Mordkovich has just recorded but I do hope that Eduard Grach’s recording with Rozhdestvensky will appear on CD – I’d have thought that RCD might have picked it up, but someone should. Despite these tempting alternatives, and leaving the Oistrakh to one side - there is a live broadcast on Brilliant to consider as well – Korsakov plays with considerable panache and poetry and proves a warmly sympathetic guide. Fortunately his tone is forward in the accepted Russian manner and he dispatches the folkloric episodes with élan and a very tight trill.

Taneyev’s Fourth Symphony gets the expected Svetlanov virtues of ardent sweep and colour saturation. The brass is trenchant and biting and there’s measured gravity in the slow movement with its light, wind interludes. The finale is full of drama and Brahmsian power, the triumphal brass perorations immensely exciting. To round out this second disc we have Apollo’s Temple in Delphi, which fuses luscious efflorescence with vestigial power in six minutes of echt-Svetlanov conducting. If you prefer a more technically accurate reading try Rozhdestvensky’s on Chant du Monde 278931 or Järvi’s excellent Chandos traversal [CHAN 8953] among others.

Cantata No.2 ‘At the Reading of a psalm’ Op.36 occupies the third disc. It’s a big and dramatic work and fortunately we have three big and dramatic solo voices - Ludmila Belobragina (soprano), Lyubov Aleshchenkova (mezzo soprano), Evgeni Vladimirov (bass), the unfortunate trio omitted in the box’s documentation. Taneyev had a talent for summoning atmosphere with great vividness and he employs some striking sonorities in the chorus and triple fugue that ends Part One –  real force here. But he doesn’t stint the poetry of the setting either nor the sombre, brooding qualities that permeate the Second Part – along with admixture of Wagnerian harmonies. The statuesque Aleshchenkova is down as a mezzo but there’s surely more of the Clara Butts about her voice – she sounds positively sepulchral in the Adagio aria of Part Three. Here Taneyev, as does Glazunov in some of his symphonic work, sounds close to Elgar. This is a stirring, dramatic, consoling and often beautiful work, vividly though not always neatly played.

The final disc is given over to the Brotherly Prayer for the Dead by Alexander Kastalsky, written in 1915 – the same year in which Taneyev wrote his Cantata. This is another profoundly serious and moving work and it’s eloquently served by the orchestral and choral forces here with some glorious singing all round. Whether dramatically infused or lamenting, whether summoning military brass or consoling this is another work fully deserving repeated hearings. It’s appropriate that it’s here since the composer was a pupil of Taneyev and his fusion of Russian Orthodox and other traditions, principally Serbian and Anglican, gives the work its individual force.

Adherents of Svetlanov’s exploration of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Russian music should gravitate to this impressive box.

 

Jonathan Woolf




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.