Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 1, op. 13, Winter Dreams (1866) [39:55]
Vassily KALINNIKOV (1866-1901)
Symphony No. 1 in G minor (1894-95) [35:32]
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra/Fabien Sevitzky
rec. 19 March 1946 (Tchaikovsky); 7-8 January 1941 (Kalinnikov), Murat Theatre, Indianapolis, Indiana.
PRISTINE PASC560 [75:21]
Here are two Victor studio recordings from the 1940s in transfers by producer and audio restoration engineer, Mark Obert-Thorn. The disc is Volume 4 of Pristine’s Fabien Sevitzky/Indianapolis Symphony series (Volume 1 ~ Volume 2 ~ Volume 3). These mono recordings, taken from discs approaching eighty years old, have been smartened and sweetened to produce sound that is very listenable. The results yield much musical pleasure, offering insight into wartime or post-war listening experiences.
Fabien Sevitzky (1893-1967) had the birth name Koussevitzky, and was a nephew of Serge. In 1937 he became conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony, a post he held for some twenty years. These two recording projects took place during that time.
The first movement of the Tchaikovsky is restless - truly lacking in rest. Sevitzky certainly takes it at a gallop, manic, breathless, tense and sometimes quiet. The movement ends downbeat and makes the transition into a true Adagio cantabile, heavy with a sentiment that also oozes from a later work, Sibelius’s Valse Triste. The balletic quick-time Scherzo predicts a composer whose dance theatre works continue to dominate the world’s stages. The finale has gravitas but after three minutes has the pulse racing, and develops a fugal sprint and a jubilant mood that was later to be adopted by Glazunov. Despite the limitations associated with contemporary technology a very creditable job is made of much pianissimo playing.
Kalinnikov was born in the same year that Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony was written and died just before his thirty-fifth birthday. After the onset of tuberculosis Kalinnikov moved to Yalta where he dedicated himself to writing music. The First Symphony received its first performance in Kiev in 1897, the year in which he completed his Second and last Symphony. The Allegro moderato of the First Symphony has none of the speed eccentricity of the first movement of the Tchaikovsky. It doesn’t hang about, but Sevitzky hits vigour rather than manic fury. The ticking magic of the Andante is whispered and well calculated - lovingly fragile. After a typically Russian nationalist bustling Scherzo comes a stomped-out, happy Finale. The ideas Kalinnikov builds and uses are catchy and cut from healthy and memorable cloth.
We stand in the debt of Nathan Brown and Charles Niss who provided the source 78s, for these Pristine-enabled insights into a reputation now largely consigned to the oubliette of history.
Rob Barnett
