Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908)
Russian Easter festival overture (1888) [14:59]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Symphony in D minor (1888) [36:36]
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Kyrill Kondrashin
rec. 1980, Herkulessaal der Residenz, Munich
BR KLASSIK 900704 [51:49]
The government of the Soviet Union expected its musicians, like everyone else, to toe the communist party line. Those who did so – even reluctantly and perhaps entirely out of fear – prospered, as demonstrated in the careers of, for example, Svetlanov and Mravinsky. Those who, on the other hand, had the temerity to make waves or were out of favour for another reason soon found themselves if not in the sights of the KGB then, as, for instance, in the case of Nathan Rakhlin, banished to the cultural fringes in the comparative obscurity of Tatarstan.
Kirill Kondrashin must have hidden his dissident views pretty effectively because he would not otherwise have been permitted to travel abroad. Having, however, been allowed to visit the Netherlands in December 1978 to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra, he promptly claimed asylum. A subsequent attempt to build a new career in the West was ended by his premature death less than three years later, with the two recordings on this disc deriving from that final period of his life. In his magisterial study Conductors on record [London, 1982], John L. Holmes advised listeners that the most distinctive features of Kondrashin’s recorded interpretations were “[s]ome tempi, the balance of texture of the orchestral sound, the phrasing of many passages, and an acute dynamic control, amounting almost to a mannerism” (op. cit., p. 353). Incidentally, given the relative reputations that they enjoy today, it’s interesting to note that in 1982 Kondrashin was accorded more column inches in Holmes’s book than either Svetlanov or Mravinsky.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter festival overture takes us through the course of an Orthodox church service that, after some initial meditation on the sorrow associated with the Good Friday crucifixion, quickly erupts in joy at the revelation of Easter Sunday’s resurrection. Rimsky’s focus is quite clearly on the latter. Refusing to indulge in the Slavic gloom of some of his notable contemporaries (Chekhov, anyone? Tolstoy?), he allocates only four minutes or so to musical despondency before switching dramatically (“Lo! He is risen!”) to a mood of celebratory triumphalism for the following ten or eleven. I certainly had high hopes for Kondrashin’s 1980 account. After all, just a year earlier he had recorded a performance of Scheherazade with the Concertgebouw Orchestra that is still regarded as one of the finest available. Indeed, when Universal issued its Philips 50 series of CDs to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Dutch label, that performance was one of those selected for inclusion (Philips 464 735-2). My keen anticipation of this account of the Russian Easter festival overture was only increased further when I read my colleague Michael Cookson’s praise for what he considered its “vividly colourful sound” and a “brooding atmosphere that I find completely convincing”. Unfortunately, my own reaction is to find Kondrashin’s account an altogether rather dull and penny-plain affair.
It is, in all probability, a case of your personal preferences being determined what you’re used to hearing. My own recording of choice has, for many years, been the 1959 account by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and I see that the CD that includes it along with Rimsky’s other 1887-1888 masterpieces Scheherazade and Capriccio espagnol (Sony Essential Classics SBK46537) has also been much admired by a couple of our senior MusicWeb reviewers. Jonathan Woolf describes this version of the overture as a “luxurious performance… [that] still sounds spaciously assertive”, while Rob Barnett loves its “guts, ferocity and passion… the effect is edge-of-seat”. As Rob’s words suggest, Ormandy’s Philadelphia performance is one that simply grabs you by the scruff of the neck all the way from the dramatically-delivered opening liturgical chants of its introduction, via a magical transitional passage at 3:51, to, thereafter, a seemingly inexorable and never-ending sequence of brilliantly-lit and coruscating gemstones in sound. This, let’s remember, is not a Russian Good Friday overture but one marking the joyous celebration of the subsequent resurrection. That surely requires the deployment of the maximum degree of musical glitter and sparkle but I’m afraid that, at least on this occasion, Kondrashin – who, I note, extends the opening pre-transition gloom until 4:22 – is certainly no Fabergé.
César Franck’s symphony also dates from 1888, but it inhabits an altogether different sound world where large portions of the score do indeed benefit from an approach that majors on “brooding”, particularly an opening movement that’s full of false starts and phrases that repeatedly wind back on themselves, all set against an orchestral background that’s often growling, snarling and snapping. Apart, it goes without saying, from orchestral playing of the highest possible standard, the finest performances must deliver two things convincingly in parallel. The first is a level of musical drama so intense as to allow us to appreciate why Madame Franck, the apparent epitome of Victorian-values, disapprovingly regarded it as verging on the sensually indecent. The second is an appropriate level of propulsive energy amounting at times to a sense of real urgency. Take the piece too slowly in order to emphasise the dramatics and you lose the required momentum; take it, on the other hand, too quickly and you sacrifice the necessary heft.
The clearest example of the over-weighty approach is, perhaps, that of Leonard Bernstein who, as is often the case in his later recordings, smothers sections of the score with a thick layer of glutenous treacle. His 1981 performance with L’Orchestre National de France (DG 400 070-2) is thereby extended to more than 42 minutes in length and, while I can enjoy that wilfully eccentric treatment as an occasional guilty treat, it simply doesn’t feel right.
The over-speedy approach, on the other hand, sees some conductors prioritising surface excitement over according sufficient weight to the symphony’s dramatic – or even melodramatic – moments. Thus, at just 34:48 Willem Mengelberg’s 1940 account with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (Decca 0289 480 7636 9) is more than occasionally thrilling but ultimately lacks much in the way of emotional depth. One might, meanwhile, have expected something rather special from Paul Paray, still very highly regarded for his performances of the French (or, in this case, Franco-Belgian) orchestral repertoire. However, his 1959 Detroit Symphony Orchestra recording (Mercury Living Presence 434 368-2) sounds, at a rushed 33:58, uncharacteristically superficial and lightweight and cannot be considered in serious contention.
My preferred accounts manage successfully to avoid either extreme and to balance the elements of dramatic exposition and propulsive direction convincingly and entirely viably. Interestingly too – and reflecting, perhaps, the fact that the piece is much less popular today than it used to be - they all turn out to be of a certain vintage. In order of their original recording, they come from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra/Rodzinski (1954, 39:47, Forgotten Records fr 181, L’Orchestre National de l’ORTF/Beecham (1959, 38:29, EMI Classics 9099322, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Monteux (1961, 38:59, BMG-RCA Living Stereo SACD 82876 678972, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Barbirolli (1962, 37:39, Supraphon SU 3779-2), the Concertgebouw Orchestra/van Otterloo (1964 (?), 36:56, IMP Collectors Series IMPX 9037) and, last but certainly not least, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Stokowski (1970, 39:24, Medici Arts MM026-2.
How does Kondrashin fare in this august company? The fact that his performance comes in at a brisk 36:36 might suggest that he has sacrificed some of the symphony’s weightiness but, in reality, matters aren’t quite that simple. This is, it’s true, a driven and very exciting account that always has its final destination clearly in view. Kondrashin isn’t, in general, a dawdler. In fact, he so rarely lingers in admiration of the score’s more reflective moments that when he does occasionally and briefly do so (14:44-15:16 in the opening movement or 8:01-8:17 in the second) the effect is quite noticeable. Nevertheless, the energy of the performance is both clearly directed and effectively delivered with, I think, the only misjudgement occurring in the finale where, at 6:14-6:39, he drives right through the climax that, when accorded its proper weight, provides listeners with a welcome sense of emotional catharsis.
That is not to say, however, that Kondrashin plays down the symphony’s inherent drama. His approach in that respect is to rely less on variations in tempi than on effecting very skilled changes in dynamics. While Mr Holmes – who, in compiling his book clearly listened to many more of the conductor’s recordings that I have done – chooses to regard that characteristic as “amounting almost to a mannerism”, it is certainly an effectively deployed means of focusing our attention on the music’s pervasive atmosphere of dramatic intensity that was of such concern to poor Madame Franck.
While this performance demonstrates Kondrashin’s skill as an interpreter, it simultaneously demonstrates the very fine playing of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra which delivers the symphony with an assured and authoritative measure of weight and sonority.
My colleague Michael Cookson’s considered opinion is that this account of Franck’s orchestral masterpiece offers strong competition to his other preferred versions – which were all, by the way, also from the vintage era (the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Monteux as detailed above, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/Maazel [1961] and the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Munch [1963]). I am, on the whole, inclined to agree.
Rob Maynard
Previous review: Michael Cookson
