Delos state that these recordings were previously released
on the Russian Disc label, with a copyright date of 1993: that
points to RDCD 11067, which features Abdullayev conducting the
Ostankino Radio & TV Symphony Orchestra; as Ostankino
is the name of the landmark TV and radio mast in Moscow, this
is presumably the same outfit. The recordings appeared a couple
of years later on Olympia (OCD 491), with the orchestra now
labelled the Moscow Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra.
There is, alas, no information in the booklet about the Orchestra,
but this is the ensemble that started up in 1978, not the one
founded in 1930 as the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, now
called the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, its musical director
since 1974 Vladimir Fedoseyev. Potential for confusion is not
diminished when Naxos, for example, attribute the recordings
of the latter to the former, as they do on their website in
the case of the Arthaus Musik six DVD box-set of the complete
Tchaikovsky symphonies (102119), released in 2008; nor by the
fact that the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra also used to be
known as the USSR State Radio Symphony Orchestra!
Nevertheless, all Russian orchestras take their music very seriously,
and under leading Azerbaijani conductor Rauf Abdullayev, the
Moscow Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra, whatever it calls itself
or gets called, gives strong, persuasive performances of Azerbaijani
composer Kara Karayev's entertaining ballet music. Karayev's
name is frequently seen as 'Gara Garayev', the latter a transliteration
that more accurately reflects the initial sounds of his names
than the old Soviet-based version. In Azerbaijan itself Garayev
is known as Qara Qarayev, and there seems no compelling reason
not to have left it as that. Whatever the spelling, the stress
falls on the second A in each name.
From the outset Seven Beauties, reported to be the first
ever ballet by an Azerbaijani composer, is reminiscent of the
music of the Jazz Suites of Shostakovich, with whom Garayev
did in fact study composition. The second and several other
of the eleven movements, however, are more like something by
Malcolm Arnold or Miklós Rózsa - more in common with 1950s Hollywood
than what was going on musically or socially behind the Iron
Curtain.
The slightly later ballet suite, In the Path of Thunder,
is in a similar vein, though perhaps more discerning. The ballet
tells the bitter-sweet tale of interracial lovers in apartheid-era
South Africa ultimately meeting a tragic end, thereby causing
The People to rise up against their oppressors: cue thoughtful,
romantic, rousing themes skilfully interwoven into an attractive
narrative.
Any anticipated exotic/indigenous elements borrowed from South
African or Caucasian folk music, referred to repeatedly in the
booklet notes, are surprisingly sparse. Even the extended central
section of Seven Beauties, featuring five consecutive
national dances from as far afield as India and China, is heavily
sieved through European musical precepts. Anyone looking for
exotica would find more in Rimsky-Korsakov or his pupil Mikhail
Ippolitov-Ivanov, both of whom successfully imbued their music
with an Oriental fragrance fifty years earlier.
Given the stories told by, and the general nature of, the ballet,
this is music of grand emotional sweep, cinematographic in that
1950s Hollywood way. There is little subtlety or profundity
as such, yet Garayev was, like Arnold and Rimsky-Korsakov, a
master orchestrator, and for anyone interested in orchestral
colour and drama - not to mention lots of pleasing melody, catchy
rhythms and easy-going tonal harmony - from a neglected musical
figure straddling two continents, this CD is worthy of consideration.
Sound quality is not bad, by any means, but not perfect - there
is plenty of clarity, yet still an ever-present suspicion of
audio compression. The CD booklet is thin but attractive.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk
Moscow Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra/Rauf Abdullayev 