Classical Music classical CDs reviewed New CD reviews every day latest Classical CD releases Buy your CDs of the classics here

Classical Editor: Rob Barnett
 

Music Webmaster
Len Mullenger: Len@musicweb-international.com



Alexander GRECHANINOV's Symphonies on CHANDOS

BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

Grechaninov's name is not totally unknown to music lovers. A number of his devotional choral pieces have always been in the repertoire of choirs. However his symphonies could not even be said to be peripheral. They fell off the edge of the known repertoire after securing a momentary toe-hold in the concert halls in the 1930s and 1940s.

Grechaninov's Russian birthright glows from the pages of his music. No revolutionary he, Grechaninov gloried in the Russian nationalism of Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Neither Communism nor Dodecaphony held any glamour for him. His alienation charted its way in fourteen years (1925-39) in Paris and then emigration to the USA where he spent the rest of his life. For him there was no return; in that respect he was unlike Prokofiev. He died at age 93 in New York.

His works are extensive. There is a great deal of music for children, operas, chamber music and songs. The five symphonies date 1894-1936.

This sequence of discs supplants the Marco Polo CD (8.223163) of the first two symphonies in terms of recording quality although both Johannes Wildner and Christian Edlinger give both symphonies a good run for their money. The polish and spirit of Polyansky's orchestra are superior. I have not heard Olympia OCD 586 where the second and fourth symphonies are conducted respectively by Edvard Chivzhel (rec 1983) and the usually challenging and turbulent Algis Zuraitis (rec 1977).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864-1956)
Symphony No. 1 (1894) 34.16
Snowflakes (1910) 15.47
Missa Sancti Spiritus (1940) 20.28
Ludmila Kuznetsova (mezzo)
Tatiana Jeranje (con)
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Russian State SO/Valeri Polyansky
rec 1994
CHANDOS CHAN 9397 [68.46]
Crotchet
  Amazon UK

In his First Symphony Grechaninov cannot hide his allegiance to the Russian nationalist school. It is part and parcel of this symphony. Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov (Grechaninov was a Rimsky pupil) peer out from every corner. Rimsky conducted the premiere in St Petersburg on 26 January 1895. The stunning melodic flow of Borodin is absent and neither is there the captivating brilliance of Rimsky. In its place the invention is pleasant, varied and smoothly accomplished. The style can be likened to early/mid-period Dvorak or Glazunov. In fact Polyansky and his orchestra are gradually working their way through the Glazunov symphonies. Polyansky's rather broad tempi for Glazunov are less in evidence in Grechaninov. Attractive music and a delightful change but not stunning.

Snowflakes is a charming setting of ten miniature poems of or about childhood. Kuznetsova is stern of tone with the choir sensitively graduating their dynamics to match the words. The choral singing is to a very high standard of unanimity and precision. Thankfully the settings are not childish but weld together the snowy delight of the singing in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker with the fantasy fairytale horrors of Baba Yaga (Liadov) and the icy sunrises of Rachmaninov's Spring Cantata and Three Russian Songs.

Abandoning the orchestra, the Mass (a product of the New York years) is tactfully underpinned by the organ. This is a devotional work among Grechaninov's many such but it has a touch of the Church of England rather than Russian Orthodox. It has some of the same spirit as the a cappella church music of Ropartz (Marco Polo) and Koechlin although its surrender to emotion is more ready than that of the two French masters. This certainly leans more towards Fauré than to Rachmaninov's Vespers or Chrysostum Liturgy. The peaceful Agnus Dei is well worth sampling.

There is much to enjoy here and the plangent singing is of the highest order.

The recording is of very high quality and the music is well supported by full texts and Eric Roseberry's supportive notes.

Rob Barnett

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864-1956)
Symphony No. 2 Pastoral (1908) 38.11
Mass Et in terra pax (1942) 20.31
Anatoly Obratzsov (bass)
Ludmila Golub (organ)
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Russian State SO/Valeri Polyansky
rec 1995
CHANDOS CHAN 9486 [58.50]
Crotchet
  Amazon UK

The Second Symphony is a more original and engaging work than the First. It has claims to compelling qualities not even scratched by the First. In the second movement at 6.10 the eloquent trumpet tops out a moment of Tchaikovskian majesty in sympathy with the Fifth Symphony. The tone is predominantly elegiac-tragic with moments which drift in stimulatingly from the Pathétique. The clarinet at 8.30 sings poignantly if not as fluently as we might have hoped. Grechaninov's case is helped by Polyansky's expansive leanings and by a tremendously clear and meaty recording. Only in the last movement do the flames flicker and burn low. All in all though anyone drawn to Tchaikovsky is likely to want this music.

The Mass rather like the Sancti Spiritus mass on CHAN 9397 is for organ and chorus alone. Its style is in step as well. Older age has distanced him from the glimmering colours of Russian romantic nationalism and drawn him (without suffocation) into the Establishment church music of New York. I find little in this which has the exoticism of Rachmaninov's Vespers. A closer parallel might be Percy Whitlock or Herbert Sumsion. More C of E than Russian Orthodox. Less of the censer and more of the hassock. Choirmasters please note as this music is well worth your attention. Listen to the organ flourish at the Sanctus and I defy you not to think of Hubert Parry.

A welcome contrast then: a symphony of Tchaikovskian inclination if not rivalling the master's temperature, and a serious choral work smoothly presented with almost Elgarian illumination.

Incidentally why is it that this disc and the previous one are labelled as part of Chandos's 'New Direction' series but that label is missing from the other discs?

Rob Barnett

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864-1956)
Symphony No. 3 36.05
Cantata: Kvalite Boga 30.14
Ludmila Kuznetsova (mezzo)
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Russian State SO/Valeri Polyansky
rec 1998
CHANDOS CHAN 9698 [66.12]
Crotchet
  Amazon UK

Tchaikovskian blood flowing through the veins warms the flesh of Grechaninov's Third. The work was premiered in Kiev in 1923, the year before the composer left for Paris. At 6.20 in the first movement one of those gracious nostalgic flute melodies of which Glazunov was a pastmaster floats by in eloquent confidence. The second movement makes equally poignant use of the upper woodwind. I was reminded somewhat of Madetoja's Second Symphony which also has Tchaikovskian leanings. The rolling and carolling woodwind of the andante sounds like a relaxed version of Schumann (Rhenish Symphony) with a dash of Elgar. Grechaninov writes consistently very well for the woodwind. The antiphonal effects of the finale are wonderfully unstuffy although the insurgence at 3.07 of a sub-Rimsky 'rumpus' is not the strongest part of the symphony.

The cantata, in contrast with the smooth 'Establishment' ring of the other two masses, is a much more clearly Russian work. It is a masterpiece of elation and exalted peaks. The rapt inwardness of the cries of 'Vruju' from Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, Vaughan Williams' Magnificat and something of the singing swing of Paul Paray's St Joan Mass (wonderfully done by James Paul on Reference) comes across in Grechaninov's work. Time after time the composer comes up with inspired music. The regal vision and rippling motion of the final panel of the triptych is a remarkable inspiration with significant roles for the flute and trumpet. A wonderful discovery.

Once again the recording is crisp and punchy with enough space around the voices and orchestra to flatter the grand scale of Grechaninov's vision.

Rob Barnett

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864-1956)
Symphony No. 4 (1927) 34.54
Cello Concerto (1895) 16.53
Missa festiva (1937) 20.28
Alexander Ivashkin (cello)
Ludmila Golub (organ)
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Russian State SO/Valeri Polyansky
rec 1996
CHANDOS CHAN 9559 [74.16]
Crotchet
  Amazon UK

The Fourth Symphony is dedicated to Tchaikovsky and is as consistently Russian nationalist as its three predecessors. Its Russianness intensified by isolation from his homeland the work was written in St Jean-de-Luz, in France not far from the Spanish border. There is a higher quota of angst in the first movement than we are accustomed to but Grechaninov's mainstream of flowing lyricism is much in evidence. The Vivo movement dashes and dances with all the swash of Glazunov's Fifth or the charging chivalry of Miaskovsky's Twenty-First or Eighteenth Symphonies. The andante marks time going through the Tchaikovskian motions rather than driven by them. Things improve with the crashing Allegro vivo - festive and lightly graceful (at 5.01) with a sprinkling of En Saga along the way.

The Cello Concerto makes for agreeable listening but I must part company with Alexander Ivashkin when he claims that the work 'is undoubtedly one of the best piece in the Russian cello repertoire'. The style is romantic, virtuosic, rhapsodic - closer to Saint-Saens than to Dvorak or to Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations.

After the spiced and exalted nationalism of the Cantata coupled with Symphony No. 3 the Missa Festiva is back in the language of the other two Masses in this series. Seemingly with this work he trounced thirty-eight French and Belgian composers taking first prize in a competition. There is no denying the fluency of his setting and the truly clear and powerful singing reserved for the choral works in this series. That said these works sing in undenied beauty of comfortable and unruffled waters. They lack a challenging epic span.

With the concerto and the mass being pleasant rather than transfixing, our attention naturally centres on the symphony which is a good work though without the flare of the second and third symphonies.

Rob Barnett

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alexander GRECHANINOV (1864-1956)
Symphony No. 5 (1936) 37.12
Missa Oecumenica (1936) 42.02
Tatiana Sharova (sop)
Ludmila Kuznetsova (mezzo)
Oleg Dolgov (ten)
Margarita Fadeyev (bass)
Russian State Symphonic Cappella
Russian State SO/Valeri Polyansky
rec 1999 Moscow
CHANDOS CHAN 9845 [79.16]
Crotchet
  Amazon UK

Who would have thought it? An intégrale of Grechaninov's quintet of symphonies. The cycle is brought to culmination with every Chandos virtue thumpingly asserted. Polyansky and all the artists are on at least decent form and the conductor keeps things moving along nicely contrary to his form in the Glazunov symphony cycle. The choir excels. The recording is big and bold without being in your lap.

Both works date from the year of Barber's First Symphony, Hovhaness's Exile Symphony, Uuno Klami's Psalmus, Koechlin's Jungle Book, Miaskovsky Symphony No. 16, Prokofiev's Eugene Onegin, Rubbra's First Symphony, Tubin Symphony No. 2, Healey Willan Symphony No. 1 and Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem.

Grechaninov seems never to have been a insurrectionist. He composes with utmost comfort within the bounds of the Russian nationalistic tradition in the case of the symphonies but straddles three idioms for the masses and vocal works. The choral idioms spanned are middle-of-the-road English choral evensong, a smoothly honeyed echo of the French choral line (Fauré, Poulenc and Paray) and the Russian Orthodox line.

The Missa Oecumenica is dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitsky and, promisingly, was written entirely spontaneously. There was no commission involved. Its premiere was in Boston in 1944 when its message of pan-religious universality must have had a strong 'charge'. Eric Roseberry notes the imagery drawn from Russian traditional, Gregorian and Hebrew sources. We know all too little of Grechaninov's work but this may well be his spiritually most ambitious conception. The Mass is a work grand span and is determinedly serious. The opening Kyrie is uplifting in a way familiar from Paray's St Joan Mass as also is the Sanctus (a good track to sample). After two hearings there are for me no devastatingly memorable tunes but it leaves me with that sense of a work of sincerity worth returning to. It is a work of delicacy and exaltation. Its message of union rather than solipsistic assertion of identity in isolation and exclusion is timeless. The Agnus Dei ends without 'Barnum and Bailey' Verdi-isms but with a breathing fall into silence.

The Symphony is slap bang within the Russian nationalist tradition defined by Borodin and Rimsky. It was written in Paris. Stokowski (whose breadth of repertoire is underestimated) premiered it in Philadelphian in 1939. It must have been reassuring to the conservatively-inclined audiences. It does not have the inventive tension of Rachmaninov. Without sounding outright like either composer we can naturally count this symphony as out of the same stable as the Tchaikovsky symphonies (1-3 with moments from No 5) and the Glazunov symphonies. Do not look for the turbulence or the unsettling complexities of Walton's First, Vaughan Williams 4 or Bax 6. The symphony also has its Beethovenian moments as well as a surprising touch of Rossini and Weber - in the Andante. That movement is a good one to sample not least for the brass chorale at 10.14. For a more dynamic spin try the third movement which has a stamping dance motif of considerable quality with a touch of the Coronation Walton about it.

The Mass is a strong work and certainly worth hearing again. The symphony is pleasing but not utterly compelling. A pity that the pause between the niente end of the Mass and the start of the symphony is momentary. At 79.16 TT perhaps it was impossible to add more.

Now Chandos s there any chance that you will turn your attentions to another Russian: Maximilian Steinberg whose four symphonies (1907, 1909, 1929, 1933) are crying out for a first recording? The Fourth 'Turk-Sib' was broadcast by the BBC some years ago and the First has been recorded by Neeme Järvi (DG). He is a most promising composer.

Rob Barnett

(for the Mass)


Reviews from previous months


You can purchase CDs, tickets and musician's accessories and Save around 22% with these retailers :



BlackStar.co.uk - The UK's Biggest Video Store


Concert and Show tickets

Ticketlinks

Musicians accessories

Click here to visit piedog.com



Return to Index