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Nicolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV(1844-1908) CD 1 [75:04] Antar – Symphonic Suite, Op. 9 [30:44] May Night – Overture [8:04] The Tale of Tsar Saltan
– Suite, Op. 57 [20:27] (The Tsar’s Departure and Farewell;
The Tsarina and her son afloat in the cask; The Three Wonders; The
Flight of the Bumblebee - The Tale of Tsar Saltan) Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34 [15:16] CD 2 [66:42] Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36 [14:40] Christmas Eve – Suite [23:42] Dubinushka, Op. 62 [4:12] Sadko – A Musical Picture, Op. 5 [10:51] The Snow Maiden – Suite (Introduction; Danses des Oiseaux;
Cortège; Danses des Bouffons) [12:36]
Motet de Genève/Jacques Horneffer (Snow Maiden)
L’Orchestre de la Suisse
Romande/Ernest Ansermet
rec. Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland, October 1952 (Capriccio Espagnol,
mono); June 1954 (Antar); November 1956 (May Night, Tale of Tsar Saltan,
Russian Easter Festival Overture); April 1957 (Flight of the Bumblebee,
Sadko); May 1957 (Christmas Eve, Dubinushka); November 1957 (Snow
Maiden). ADD. DECCA ELOQUENCE
480 0827 [75:04 + 66:42]
Nicolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) Sheherazade Op. 35 [41:40] Le Coq d’Or – Suite (King Dodon in his Palace 9:15;
King Dodon on the Battlefield 4:29; King Dodon with Queen Shemakha
6:41; Marriage Feast and Lamentable End of King Dodon 6:32)
Pierre Nerini (violin)
Paris Conservatoire Orchestra/Ernest Ansermet 1-4
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet
rec. La Maison de la Mutualité, Paris, France,
September 1954 (Sheherazade); Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland,
October 1952 (Le Coq d’Or, mono). ADD DECCA ELOQUENCE
480 0081[68:58]
Heard beside recordings by Golovanov (Boheme,
1950s original) and Svetlanov
this Ansermet Sheherazade is softly lit and softly focused.
If you find the Soviets just a shade too relentless and neon
then this might be for you. It's undoubtedly effective and Ansermet
even coaxes a nice bray from the Paris Conservatoire brass or
perhaps it was endemic in those days. Nerini is a very neat
soloist but does not have the extraordinary seductive and scudding
glamour of Oistrakh for Golovanov. The recording from 1954 is
very good and way better than the ancient sounding Golovanov.
Even so its steely core is beginning to show through. For a
modern recording try Reference
Recordings’ superb version with the gifted Jose Serebrier.
The recording of the Coq d'Or suite is
even older and this shows in the exposed trumpet solo that opens
this fairy tale piece with its occasional reminiscences/predictions
of Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto. The woodwind playing in
the Battlefield movement bristles with character; indeed
this is a classic version in which Ansermet can be heard with
his usual orchestra the Suisse Romande. A fine interpretation
and much more treasurable than this Sheherazade. In
the finale and elsewhere one can see where the Stravinsky of
The Firebird and the Symphony in E flat found their influences.
The two CD set is packed tight with the rest
of Ansermet's Rimsky legacy. His Antar is magnificently
recorded as the tolling drumbeat in the first movement testifies
- deeply impressive. On the other hand, as an interpretation,
while very fine in its own right it is up against Svetlanov
and the USSRSO who make the whole score sing and sway more seductively.
Listen for example to the way Svetlanov handles the humming
tension of the second movement and the exuberant middle eastern
fair of the third. Ansermet is very good but not a match for
the volcanic Russian. There's a charming yet understated May
Night overture to match up with a rather engaging Tsar
Saltan suite the march of which must surely have formed
a model for Prokofiev's march in The Love of Three Oranges.
Also from 1958 comes the splendidly balanced Flight of the
Bumble Bee. The Capriccio Espagnol is nice to have
but shows its age (1952) in stridency. Also the orchestra's
skills cannot match those in the first league. In the Capriccio
I think particularly of the finer recording by Ormandy and
the Philadelphia.
On the second CD is the Russian Easter Festival
Overture but despite being most lovingly recorded Ansermet
favours an overly steady approach the etiolated results of which
have great charm but little bite. The Christmas Eve suite
is magically done with some hushed and tense playing captured
upfront in classically virile sound from Decca. A pity that
the whole suite is presented in a single track. The Dubinushka
is extremely nicely done: folk-cheery with some notably
pointed trumpet work. It's an artefact of those same revolutionary
times when Rimsky, at the cost of his job, sided with the students
of the St Petersburg Conservatoire at the time of the ill-fated
1905 revolution. Sadko is tempestuous and is superbly
done here with - once again - recording to match. Ansermet provides
a buzzing performance replete with slavonic melancholy and fairytale
enchantment. Note the beguilingly lissom cantabile at 3.49 onwards.
The musical picture is no longer than a concert overture and
rises to a wild dance worthy of the Polovtsi though on this
occasion sub-oceanic. The Snow Maiden suite is in four
movements - all in a single track. With its foreshadowing of
Bax's Garden of Fand this is most magically done and
the Danse des Oiseaux is finely picked out by a slightly
distanced Motet de Genève choir who achieve a nicely authentic
Russian accent recalling the celebratory sections of Rachmaninov's
The Bells. The suite ends with the sparkling Danses
des Bouffons with a dervish Tchaikovskian whirl to it.
Lower key Rimsky-Korsakov which may well suit
you. It's often very nicely recorded.
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