MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... 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


alternatively AmazonUK   AmazonUS

 

 

Alla PAVLOVA (b. 1952)

Symphony No. 5 (2006) [47:23]
Elegy for piano and string orchestra (1998) [4:41]
Mikhail Shestakov (violin); Andrei Korobeinikov (piano)
Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio/Vladimir Ziva
rec. Studio 5, Russian State TV and Radio Company Kultura, Moscow, 18, 21 June 2006
NAXOS 8.570369 [52:04] 

 


Pavlova was born in Russian but has lived in New York since 1990. Her music has been taken up by Naxos as we can see from: Symphonies 1 and 3, 8.557157;  Symphonies 2 and 4, 8.557566; Sulamith, 8.557674.

Her music has a directly appealing melodic melancholia. Crude parallels would take in the Tchaikovsky of the Pathétique, the lyric Prokofiev rather than the flâneur-sardonic and the adagio of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony.  Pavlova must have been delighted with Ziva's performance which has a fluent sense of forward movement in equipoise with a confidently weighted melancholia. The mot juste between static and dynamic is very evident in the first two movements. This is plangent music - romantic and graceful without being tame or carrying any of the desiccation of neo-classicism. There is something piercingly affecting about this writing. Much of it has a steadiness about it but urgent forward momentum can  be heard in the outer movements of this five movement symphony. The sound signature of what is an expansive work carries a strong emphasis on the massed strings. The only brass are the horns. The percussion ranks are also slimmed down. 

The composer points out in the liner notes that the symphony has a spiritual programme - which takes the listener from personal feelings about Life, to an escape via meditation into the micro-world of the lotus flower, the disturbances of the real world, the realisation that the journey of life is also its Goal. Such programmatic background is interesting but the symphony stands on its atmosphere and emotional gravitas. 

The brief Elegy has been recorded before on Albany.  The music again has Pavlova's trademark breathing plangency and subtly regretful air. It has the air of Rachmaninov sumptuously blended with the music for Love Story and Dr Zhivago. It was written for the film The American Healys (1998). 

It is a pleasure to report that Pavlova’s instinct and compulsion to compose remain as strong as ever and just as potently distinctive. 

Rob Barnett

see also Review by Dan Morgan  


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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

 

 

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.