Supraphon’s ‘Archiv’ line has come up with
a particularly spicy twofer here. It documents Khachaturian
as composer - yes, pretty obviously - but also conductor and
pianist. It also captures him singing. What more could the dedicated
admirer possibly want? Well, they might want novelty and variety,
and rare live performances. They might add that a top-line soloist
and a brilliant but rather unknown executant wouldn’t
be bad either. Let’s see if this fits the bill.
There are the three big concertos. The Violin Concerto is played
by Leonid Kogan who, with David Oistrakh, pretty much owned
the work in those days. His studio recording in Boston with
the unlikely but inspired collaboration of Pierre Monteux has
just been reissued on Guild, but other performances of Kogan’s
sovereign way with the work - not least with the composer himself
in Moscow - have survived. Here we hear Kogan and Khachaturian
live with the USSR State Radio and TV orchestra in the Smetana
Hall during the Prague Spring Festival of 1959. And what a performance
it is: dashing, lithe, exciting, brilliant, and technically
superb. The much earlier preserved Moscow performance cedes
a great deal to this one in terms of quicksilver refinement
and sheer adrenalin. With the very distinctive wide vibrato
of the Russian brass blare and, in the slow movement the rather
‘watery’ wind colours, this is a highly communicative
reading, essential for lovers of work, performer and/or composer.
There’s not so much to write regarding the Cello Concerto.
This isn’t, as I’d hoped, Sviatoslav Knushevitzky
live in Prague. It’s the same commercial recording that’s
out in a Brilliant box devoted to the cellist [8924]. The date
is 1 October 1946, though Supraphon’s documentation is
silent about this. It’s a torrid sounding studio recording
in the rather basic Russian manner of the time. Still, it preserves
the cellist’s tone in all its appreciable breadth and
colour. Note, too, the clarinet’s folkloric piping, and
the excellently realised musing cadenza for the solo cello.
Knushevitzky doesn’t stint on that intensely melancholy
paragraph from around 3:00 in the finale. It was the work’s
first recording and it’s still one of the best, interpretatively
speaking.
Finally there’s the Piano Concerto (recorded in 1960),
which is in the hands of the short-lived Czech pianist Antonín
Jemelík, who died at the age of 31 two years after making
the recording. The conductor for this is Alois Klíma,
and the orchestra the Czech Philharmonic. The playing is characterised
by a barnstorming element that matches florid virtuosity, bravura
projection and intense heroism. Not everything quite comes off,
but most things come off - and more besides. The poetic soliloquy
in the first movement certainly does come across well, for instance,
just one incident amongst many. Jemelík’s ability
to recreate, in the studio, the drama of a live performance
is certainly worthy of note.
We also hear the suite from the incidental music to Masquerade
with the Prague Radio Symphony under the composer (studio 1955)
which is as exciting and droll as it is idiosyncratically voiced
- terrific clarinet and flute principals. Khachaturian liked
the orchestra, and no wonder. The excerpts from the 1942
ballet suites for Gayane were taped with the Karlovy
Vary Symphony in that town in September 1955. It’s not
quite in the Prague Radio orchestra’s league, technically,
but this live concert performance captures a riot of exotica
and fun. Listen out for a brief touch of overload. Finally,
we have the man himself at the piano. He rattles through the
Sabre Dance and then plays the piano and sings two very
brief songs; all very approximate vocally, but full of verve.
This trio of performances was taped in Prague in April 1950
and apart from the non-Czech Cello Concerto recording, is the
earliest material here.
I suspect that, apart from that Cello Concerto recording, very
little of this will be familiar. I had a superb time with it,
and so, I’m sure, will any Khachaturian admirer.
Jonathan Woolf
Performance details
Violin concerto: May 1959 in concert in Prague
Cello concerto: October 1946, Moscow
Lenin Ode, Masquerade: Prague, September 1955
Songs, Sabre Dance: Prague, April 1950
Gayane: September 1955 in concert in Karlovy Vary
Piano concerto: Prague, November 1960
Leonid Kogan (violin) Sviatoslav Knushevitsky (cello) Antonín
Jemelík (piano)