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DSCH No. 20 CD Reviews
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Shostakovich
- Complete Songs and Romances, Volume 3: Early Works (1922-1942)
Two
Fables by Ivan Krylov, op. 4[a]; Six Romances on Lyrics by Japanese Poets,
op. 21[b]; Four Romances on Words by Alexander Pushkin, op. 46[c]; Ophelia's
Song from Music for Shakespeare's Hamlet, op. 32[d]; Cordelia's
Ballad[e] and The Fool's Songs[f] from Music for Shakespeare's
King Lear, op. 58; Six Romances on Verses of Walter Raleigh, Robert
Burns, and William Shakespeare, op. 62[g].
Victoria Evtodieva (soprano)[b], Liudmila Shkirtil (mezzo-soprano)[a,d,e],
Mikhail Lukonin (baritone)[c,f], Fyodor Kuznetsov (bass)[g], Yuri Serov
(piano).
Delos DE 3309. DDD. TT 62:41.
Recorded St. Catherine Lutheran Church, St. Petersburg, 23 March 1998[g],
10 May 2001[b,c], 25 January 2002[a,d-f].
World premiere recording of arrangements[a,b,d,e].
Delos hereby release the third volume of what is shaping up to be a landmark series in the Shostakovich discography: the first ever survey of the complete songs. Concentrating on the settings for voice and piano, the series extends beyond Neeme Järvi's important collection of the orchestral songs on Deutsche Grammophon (439 860-2; deleted) and has turned out some significant world premiere recordings. The previous releases in the Delos series have received well-deserved praise for their distinguished performances and overall presentation. The series is neatly divided into chronological periods; the first album was dedicated to the songs of the 1950s, the second to those of the final years. The third album now takes up the early songs, embracing the 20-year span (1922 - 1942) that takes us from the composer's student years to the Great Patriotic War. The album also contains a few world premieres that, surprisingly, are acknowledged nowhere by Delos.
The programme begins with the 16-year old Shostakovich's first published vocal setting, the Two Krylov Fables, written while a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Though the vocal style owes a debt to Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich's trademark irony and abrupt transitions abound. In the piano accompaniment, parallels to his Three Fantastic Dances, written the same year, are evident as never before. This is, after all, the world premiere recording of the work in its arrangement for voice and piano. The three previous recordings that we have are of the orchestral version, featuring soprano in the first song and chorus in the second. The recording here also marks the debut of soprano Liudmila Shkirtil in the Delos series. Her clarity of tone and experience in the opera house are much in evidence. In the first song, The Dragonfly and the Ant, she takes the music's quick turns and wide leaps with ease and agility. Compare the constant, robust tones of Galina Borisova in the Rozhdestvensky version (BMG/Melodiya 74321 59058-2; deleted) or the aristocratic inflections of Larissa Dyadkova in the Järvi version. In the second song, The Jackass and the Nightingale, Shkirtil offers a colourful set of characterizations not possible in its original version for chorus. She affects the Jackass's ungainly staccato with whimsical intonations. She then delivers the elegant cantilena of the Nightingale with perfect loveliness. In her readings, these songs come to life as never before.
Shkirtil is also featured in the world premiere recording of Ophelia's Song from the Hamlet stage music of 1932. The music is identical to the orchestral number of the same name found in the fairly often-recorded suite. It is a delightfully offbeat tune that reflects Ophelia's charms as well as her impending madness. Here, Shkirtil emphasizes the lyrical rather than the ironic aspects of the music, where perhaps more of the latter would have been welcome.
Shkirtil is also the soloist in Cordelia's Ballad from the King Lear incidental music. The song is a fine melodic inspiration, a dignified minor key march that can sound proud and ceremonious, as when sung by Yevgeny Nesterenko with pianist Yevgeny Shenderovich (HMV Melodiya ASD 3700; deleted), or mournfully expressive, as in soprano Nina Romanova's broadly paced version with orchestra (Olympia OCD 5006; deleted). By contrast, Shkirtil's relatively fast tempo and soft, pliable tones offer an attractive rendition that plays up no particular angle. The recording, incidentally, is a world premiere of the version for female voice and piano.
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The subject matter of the Six Romances on Japanese Poems makes it one of the few vocal settings in the Shostakovich repertoire not susceptible to political ramifications. Lovelorn and morbid, the brief verses take up the subjects of devoted love, lust, parting, hopeless attachment, suicide, and death. In a kind of lyrical experiment, Shostakovich shuns melodic patterns altogether in favour of a freely weaving arioso. Though there is little that is memorable within, the vocal line is nonetheless sensitively tailored to the texts and captures the ardour of youthful love. All previous recordings of the work have been with tenor voice, as indicated in the original score. The songs are sung here by soprano Victoria Evtodieva, whose estimable gifts I praised in my review of her performance of Shostakovich's Blok cycle in Volume 2. Evtodieva possesses a sensitivity and mournfulness that makes a convincing case for these Japanese lyrics from the female perspective. Her ethereal quality at times makes her seem less involved in the text than noted tenor Alexei Maslennikov, whose equally fine interpretations have been recorded in both piano and orchestral versions (Melodiya C10 15501-2 and BMG/Melodiya 7321 59057-2; deleted). Evtodieva nevertheless elicits much depth of feeling. She makes the wide melodic leaps of the first song, Love, seem effortless. She arrives at the final crescendo of the second song, Before the Suicide, with building intensity, and likewise captures the heartfelt tenderness of The First and Last Time.
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The melodic stability and individuality of Shostakovich's next cycle, the Pushkin Romances, mark a consolidation of his gifts as a composer of songs. As these settings fall in between the notorious Pravda attacks and the reactionary Fifth Symphony, their texts cry out for multiple interpretation. Much has been written about the reference in the Fifth Symphony finale to the distinctive rhythmic figure in the first song, Resurrection, here brought out with signal prominence by pianist Yuri Serov (the song also contains a phrase that could have provided Galt MacDermott with the opening notes of his hit song, Age of Aquarius). While the text of this poem rails against barbarous fools who tamper with artists' work, the music here and in most of the songs has more of a benevolent than a defiant tone, save the last song.
Among the orchestral versions of these pieces, we have the stout, well-rounded tones of Anatoli Safiulin backed by Rozhdestvensky's conducting of his own outstanding orchestration (BMG Melodiya 74321 59057-2; deleted), and the more steely character of Sergei Leiferkus's bass in the Järvi version, which uses Shostakovich's original scoring. Both are fine performances, but neither captures the intimacy of the versions for voice and piano. Sergei Yakovenko in an early Melodiya release with pianist Mariya Grinberg (C10 05567-8; deleted), boasts a dark, hard-edged bass in a performance of breathless rapture that deserves attention.
In the Delos version, baritone Mikhail Lukonin brings a distinctly pastoral quality to these settings. He takes the verses to heart, projecting them with deep feeling. In the second song, A Jealous Maiden, he exhibits a fine sense of delicacy. The rising and falling phrases of the third song, Anticipation, are moving, and Lukonin convincingly captures the outrage and subsequent resignation in the powerful last song, Stanzas.
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Lukonin demonstrates another side of his talents in the ten Fool's Songs from the King Lear stage music. The songs are based on the well-known tune, Jingle Bells, and trot out a quick succession of witty, interlinked melodic variants. It is particularly entertaining to hear a no-nonsense bass like Stanislav Suleimanov submitting to these capricious escapades, especially with the feisty orchestral accompaniment provided by Mikhail Jurowski (Capriccio 10 397). The notable team of Yevgeny Nesterenko and Yevgeny Shenderovich (HMV Melodiya ASD 3700; deleted) offers execution that, while buoyant, is only satisfactory, lacking the jovial edge provided by Mikhail Lukonin. Lukonin is not afraid to personalise these short songs with campy spontaneity. He and Yuri Serov seem to have worked out the timing, delivery and pauses between each of these songs. The result is a delightful blend of irony and elegance. Lukonin is a baritone of impressive flexibility.
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The performance of the Six Romances to Words of Raleigh, Shakespeare and Burns, with bass Fyodor Kuznetsov, was previously released on a now-deleted René Gailly disc that I reviewed in DSCH No. 11. As I wrote in that review, Fyodor Kuznetsov's strengths lie in the rich resonance of his basso, and the dramatic intensity he brings to these songs. His vocal heartiness and commanding intensity establish a thoroughly solid and convincing presence. He responds well to the declamatory moodiness and punctuated phrases in the opening Sir Walter Raleigh to his Sonne, and brings a pastoral warmth to the droning caresses of the following O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast. Although I find that he lacks the playfulness called for in some of the satirical songs, such as the final King's Campaign, he shines in Macpherson's Farewell, suggesting that he would make an ideal soloist in the Thirteenth Symphony; the main theme of that symphony's Humour movement derives from this song. Although Kuznetsov's interpretations tend to be on the serious side, they are also guided by an intelligence and musical sensibility that bring these works to life.
In all, this is another handsome edition in the ongoing Delos survey. Pianist Yuri Serov again deserves praise for the impressive authority he demonstrates in conveying the wide range of expression in Shostakovich's songs. His liner notes are informative and well written. The graphics department at Delos deserves mention for the very attractive and distinctive album design of the series.
For the Shostakovich aficionado, indispensable.
Louis
Blois
Index
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Katerina
Ismailova,
op. 114.
Yuri Ahronovich, RAI Orchestra and Chorus, Gloria Lane (Katerina), William
Cochran (Sergei), Kari Nurmela (Boris), Georgi Chokalov (Zinovy), Anastasia
T. Schepis (Aksinya), Bernardino di Domenico (Peasant), Dimitri Lopatto
(Clerk/Guard/Sentinel), Vinicio Cocchiere (Porter), Marcello Munzi (Coachman/First
Workman), Osvaldo Alemanno (Second Workman/Host), Alfredo Zanazzo (Priest),
Lino Puglisi (Commissar), Florindo Andreolli (Nihilist), Maurizio Mazzieri
(Old Convict), Anna di Stasio (Sonyetka), Giacomo Carmi (Officer/Third
Workman).
Opera D'Oro OPD-1388. AAD. 3-CD set TT 2h:53min.
Recorded live Rome, 29 May 1976.
Oh, to be madly in love; it's what most people live for - or in the case of Shostakovich's anti-heroine Katerina Ismailova, die for. The San Francisco Opera, currently producing the original Lady Macbeth, op. 29, offers this convenient synopsis (www.sfopera.com): "[Katerina] murders her husband and his father to get her hands on their wealth and enjoy it with her lover. She's found out, arrested and tried. She's sent to a gulag, cheated and maltreated. And she dies."
If you have read the few "authoritative" Western commentaries of the opera, you may be forgiven for thinking that Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a Limpid Stream with a touch of sex and violence, or a vaudeville revue with Leskov's "horror story" grafted on, or else that it is as unremittingly grim and grey as Berg's Wozzeck (with which Shostakovich's opera is often compared).
Yet Lady Macbeth (and its 1963 revision, Katerina Ismailova) is none of these; it is a monumental work of genius. In a time when not just love, but life, was topsy-turvy, Shostakovich took love and turned it into a metaphor for a society quickly descending into decay and teetering on the edge of an epochal disaster. In the tradition of Musorgsky, the young Shostakovich observed the cataclysmic events unfolding before him and told the tale in a most colourful and original manner, in a language developed as much out of his music hall passions as his already maturing symphonic sensibilities.
There are two points in the opera where the inescapable fate of the characters, indeed, the entire Russian people, resounds with such terrifying intensity that Shostakovich's insight in composing the opera leaves no doubts of his artistic intentions: the epic Passacaglia, as a premonition, and the opening chorus of convicts in Act 4, as the revelation of the true message behind this magnificent work of art. If the vast emotional breadth and originality of this opera do not blow you away, I suspect nothing in this composer's oeuvre will.
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Currently, the re-emergence of Rostropovich's definitive 1979 recording of op. 29 (EMI 7243 567776 2 or Angel 7243 567779 2 7; reviewed in DSCH No. 18) and the continued availability of its only rival by Myung Whun Chung (Deutsche Grammophon 437 511-2) make the original 1932 score the natural first choice for experiencing this masterpiece. However, since the only previous CD issue of Katerina Ismailova, op. 114, from the Kiev Opera directed by Stepan Turchak on Le Chant Du Monde (LDC 278 1021/23), has long been deleted, anyone interested in sampling this revised version of the opera had nowhere to turn before the new release we have here. Opera d'Oro present a radio broadcast of a gripping performance by the famous RAI Orchestra and Chorus of Rome, conducted with white-hot intensity by Yuri Ahronovich.
How different, then, is Katerina Ismailova from Lady Macbeth? Despite Lady Macbeth's reputation as pornophony, this is one Katerina you can safely bring home to mother, not only because the naughty bits have been excised by the composer himself, but also because no libretto is supplied with this release and, of course, everything is sung in Russian. The insert notes are paper thin, but then this is a budget issue. Listeners who, in the composer's words, have an "unhealthy interest" in the coarse naturalism of op. 29 will be somewhat disappointed with this "All-Audiences" version, but unless you understand Russian you wouldn't really appreciate the textual cleanup, with the removal of such filthy language as "boobs" and "slut". More noticeable would be the replacement of Boris's obsessive "Nyet Muzhika, nyet muzhika" (No man, no man).
You would also notice the removal of the high B-flats in Katerina's opening aria, "Tol'ko ya odna toskuyu" (I alone am depressed), which robs some of the exquisite danger of the original soprano part. A major loss is the rewriting of Katerina's put-on lament for Boris in Act 2, Scene 4, "Akh, Boris Timofeyevich." In the original, Shostakovich created a double-joke by quoting the text and melody from the opening chorus of Boris Godunov to serve his own Boris. DSCH readers will pick up on this, having read Eliezer Elper's thesis The Last Yurodivy in recent issues, and will no doubt miss its humour with the more neutral revision. David Fanning, in his fascinating study of Lady Macbeth's leitmotifs, and Laurel Fay, in her useful comparison of the two versions of the opera, From Lady Macbeth to Katerina (in Shostakovich Studies; reviewed in DSCH No. 5), both make only a passing reference to this revision.
Then there are the major revisions in the interludes. The replacement of the first Interlude with a brand new one, with its chugging rhythm reminiscent of Babi Yar, gives the work an interesting - if schizophrenic - feel, where the more serious 1960s Shostakovich sits uneasily amidst the irreverent cheek of his earlier style. The same can be said of the rewriting of the Interlude after the Police Station scene (Act 3, Scene 7), which echoes the whirlwind terror of the Tenth Symphony Scherzo. As interesting as the new interlude is, I still miss - and prefer - the madcap original with its hilarious sidesteps, halts and back-glances, which are very much in the spirit of op. 29's black humour.
By far the biggest loss for op. 114 is the complete removal of the notorious seduction music of Act 1 Scene 3, which is replaced by a brief, somewhat anachronistic "slow-fade" sequence based on material from the Police Station interlude, and along with it all the rude bits on the trombone. Call the original what you will - pornophony, muddle instead of music - the seduction scene and its infamous post-coital trombone glissandi are not only integral elements of Act 1 that spotlight the garish dichotomies facing Katerina and heighten the satiric commentary, providing essential contextual links to other scenes of brutality within the opera, but are also 123 bars of some of the best music in Lady Macbeth. Its frantic gallop, channelling a motoric violence so central in works like the Fourth Symphony, makes this a compelling piece of music that will be sorely missed. And without it, the rush of adrenalin that closes Act 1 on a high is mostly lost.
Revisions to the vocal tessitura and melodic line are subtler, but do give the opera a mellower, more melodic feel, smoothing over some of the harshness of Lady Macbeth. To this end, some of the orchestration is also toned down. While this has not been fully studied, one can hear for example in the Shabby Peasant's drunken aria and the ensuing Interlude the stripping away of some of the cacophony by removing the raucous suspended cymbals, metallic horn stabs, colourful harp glissandi and gong splashes. Most significantly, the reassigning of the high clarinet lines and brittle xylophone writing to softer instruments erases the very spicy, trademark sound of 1930s Shostakovich. Interestingly the historic 1964 recording of op. 114 by the Moscow Stanislavsky/Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Drama Theatre Orchestra and Chorus led by Gennady Provatorov (Angel/Melodiya LP RCL-4100) uses a slightly tamer version of the original orchestration.
Why then listen to op. 114 when excellent recordings of op. 29 are available? Firstly, we certainly need more than two recordings of this great work, and recordings of op. 114 have been just as illuminating, contributing to the ever-expanding depth and breadth of the music and characters. Secondly, the toning down of the tessitura makes for more comfortable listening, and is not without merit. Then there's the watering down of the content rating from R to PG, which should encourage more delicate ears to experience this marvellous opera.
This latest offering has practically no competition unless you manage to acquire the deleted 1983 Le Chant du Monde set. That spacious stereo recording, well balanced and possessing excellent clarity, serves up a powerful, incisive orchestral performance, but is let down by a Wagnerian cast who over-sing most of the way, and feel they must e-nun-ci-ate e-ver-y word for the sake of lucidity. It makes an excellent companion to those studying the score (no other recording provides such precise detail, for example in the Nose-like quarrel between Katerina and Zinovy or the capricious orchestral backdrop to Sergei's lament on Zinovy's impending return). While I give the orchestra top marks from start to finish, the passionless Gizela Zipola's big-breasted Brunnhilde of a Katerina and Alexander Zagrebelny's Wotan of a Boris can really get on your nerves with their Valhallan forcefulness. While there are rare moments of inspired singing, for example in Katerina and Sergei's bedroom scene after Boris' death, it is not enough to make this performance satisfying overall.
If one recording of op. 114 approaches Rostropovich's supremacy in op. 29, it is the 1964 LP set from Provatorov and the Stanislavsky/Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, the team who premiered the revised opus under Shostakovich's supervision. That this has not been reissued on CD is a tragedy - Klaus Heymann, how about this for Naxos Historical? Captured with superb clarity (and in stereo, too!) the orchestra attack the score with maniacal enthusiasm for every note and serve up razor-sharp precision that puts even the London Symphony under Rostropovich to shame. This performance has revealing freshness and transparency, the lighter texture giving the work the kind of tangy fizz that must have excited audiences in the 30s. The cast complement the excellent orchestral playing with high precision singing that often reminds one of the opera's proximity to The Nose. This brings electric excitement to the Aksinya rape scene, a true ensemble tour de force that reveals the intricacy of this complex scene while whipping up maximum emotional and dramatic power. The soloists - featuring Eleonora Andreyeva as Katerina, Eduard Bulavin as Boris and Gennady Yefimov as Sergei - are engaging and sympathetic to their characters, although Lev Yeliseyev's Shabby Peasant takes the prize as the most annoying on record.
Without either Turchak's or Provatorov's set, we are left, not unfortunately at all, with this new issue, which is well worth hearing. This live performance must have been a thrill for the audience, who erupt into enthusiastic applause after each act, often even before the last note has had time to die off. Ahronovich conducts a taut and well-paced performance that has just the right measure of drama and excellent structural poetry, and he is well supported by the impressive lead cast headed by one of the great voices of the time, Gloria Lane.
Lane, who started her career as a mezzo in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul (1950), had only recently made the switch to dramatic soprano (in 1971) when she delivered this superb Katerina. She has raw power and passion, no doubt owing to her rich mezzo tones. She delivers a searching account of the heroine that is dappled with many shades, from the passionate to naive to downright vitriolic. Unlike the blushing Juliet of Chung's Maria Ewing or the Brunnhilde of Turchak's Zipola, Lane approaches Vishnevskaya's dynamic intensity with an added touch of vulnerability. She is particularly good in the duets, displaying great chemistry with all the lead characters, especially Boris. Just listen to their deliciously heated confrontations, for example "Ty smyeyesh!... Smyeyu!" (How dare you ... I dare!) and her sarcastic "Gribkov, znachit, na noch poyeii" (Well, you had mushrooms ... many people die after eating them) from the scene of Boris' poisoning.
Lane opens the opera with a solid delivery of the first aria, but struggles at the very high Ab-Gb midway in the line "Tol'ko mney odnoy" (But I alone have nothing to do). She struggles similarly at the apex of "The foal runs after the filly", marring an otherwise outstanding effort. Happily, perhaps having thoroughly warmed up after these two rough spots, Lane delivers an accurate and solid reading to the finish. Throughout she commands sympathy and attention, and often delights the listener with little nuances, for example in her Act 1 Scene 3 bedroom encounter with the predatory Sergei, "Shtozh ty nye zhenishsa?" (Why don't you get married?). In the large scenes she also holds her own, bringing the audience to their feet with her electrifying conclusion to Act 3 (one that in my mind outdoes even Vishnevskaya), and conjuring up a truly shattering sense of surrender in her cataclysmic crescendi in the taunting scene of Act 4.
A towering performance as well from Finnish baritone Kari Nurmela, whose Boris resonates like a fallen God, spiteful and beastly, his gleeful terrorising of Katerina so palpable he elicits contempt from the very start. In Acts 1 and 2 he nearly steals the show from Katerina. His well-crafted dramatisation is marred just twice: in Act 1, where he sings several lines starting from "Nyet unas naslyednika kapitalu" (We have no heir to leave our fortune to) an entire tone higher, having entered at the wrong pitch; and similarly in the Viennese waltz sequence, where he sustains several bars a semitone higher. You would probably not notice, for Nurmela is thoroughly compelling (what a delight it would have been to hear him sing the original texts in the "nyet muzhika" passages). In comparison, Turchak's Alexander Zagrebelny delivers the most unattractive of solos in this passage, singing the last stanzas as if he conducting a lesson in pronunciation.
Sergei receives sympathetic treatment from William Cochran, who paints him less as a bastard than (as Shostakovich is said to have suggested) a man whom women simply could not resist. There is a shade of naivety and innocent recklessness in his character; take for example the calculated melodrama of his "balcony scene" parting from Katerina, which is affecting for its somewhat transparent pretence. Here Sergei conjures the world of La Boheme even as the opera veers on the brink of Wozzeck, and we actually feel sorry for him. We warm up to his Sergei, so that we forgive him even as he leaves Katerina out in the cold for Sonyetka. There is less of the snide and devilish manipulator than we find in Rostropovich's Nicolai Gedda or Provatorov's Gennady Yelimov.
Zinovy also gets a fair deal with Georgi Chokalov's well-rounded performance, although the tradition of the weedy, wimpy, non-performing husband sticks like glue. But what a struggle he puts up in his confrontation with Katerina just before his fatal encounter with the candlestick (Act 2 Scene 5)! Here he shines above most Zinovys recorded thus far: listen for instance to his indignant accusation "Skazhi mnye pravdu" (I demand the truth).
The supporting cast, presumably Italian, is generally competent. Although the chorus make an especially strong impression for their shabby ensemble singing, in context of their characters as either lazy drunken workers or lazy drunken policemen, this can be appropriately funny. The Police Station scene - led with gusto by Puglisi's swaggering Sergeant, an altogether more entertaining lout than Turchak's very unfunny bunch of law enforcers - is truly comical in this respect. Both the men and women make a mess of the calculated rhythmic chaos (especially the rhythmic laughter) of the Aksinya rape scene and the taunting of Katerina in Act 4 respectively, and the men are particularly lazy in the worker's song of Act 2 Scene 4. To their credit the ensemble deliver an intense first chorus "Zachem, ze tu uyezzayes" (Why are you leaving us, master?), while the Act 4 choruses ache with a resonance of impending doom. Here the Stanislavsky chorus is comparatively thinner, but this makes for marvellous clarity in the complex mob sequences.
Anastasia Schepis' Aksinya throws in some especially memorable squeals as she gets her udders pawed (or in this sanitised version, has her dignity compromised, wink wink), while Ana di Stasio as Sonyetka plays the weary victim who gets what she wants (although she does not sound nearly as beguiling as Provatorov's Nina Isakova). Together, Stasio and Lane deliver one of the opera's more hair-raising screams as they plunge into the icy river, a moment that tends to sound comical on audio recordings (especially with Rostropovich and Turchak - the former sounds utterly put on, while the latter evokes a drowning cat). Here in these closing pages the chorus paint a severe atmosphere of almost purgatorial bleakness around the suicide-murder, finishing off perfectly with the newly extended solo for the Old Convict to the accompanying trudge of col legno strings.
The shabbiest performance comes from the Shabby Peasant himself, who despite a promising start gets most of his entries wrong in his disastrous Act 2 Scene 6 solo. He comes in an entire beat late in "Budu pitya tsey vyek" (singing's fine when there's something to drink) and, rushing to catch up, never truly recovers as he chases the orchestra before finishing an entire half bar behind at the start of the galloping Interlude.
The orchestra are also guilty of some occasionally messy ensemble playing, critically in the exposed Act 1 Interlude between Scenes 2 and 3, and often in the very complex sequences such as the mercurial orchestral backdrop to Sergei's aria about the return of Zinovy, or the final confrontation between Katerina and Zinovy. A particularly weak point is the wedding fugue (Act 3 Scene 8), which is uncharacteristically lazy. At this point of the opera, a tempo nearly half that of op. 29 is observed in all three recordings of op. 114, but the sluggish RAI Orchestra paint the wedding's introduction as more of a garden-party than a grotesque last-supper, as served by Rostropovich and Chung's op. 29.
Yet although even in these moments of imprecision the orchestra deliver a powerful and enthusiastic offering, individual musicians playing with audible commitment. From piccolo to tuba, each moulds its lines with loving care (hear the latter in an impressive pedal towards the end of the Aksinya rape scene).
Ahronovich shapes the opera with a keen ear for Shostakovich's timbres, bringing out the rich festering lower registers (especially in the bass clarinet and contrabassoon) that underpin the entire score, and unearthing little gems in the score such as the Musorgskian accompaniment to Katerina's Act 4 "Stepanych, let me through" and the knocking motif (quoted in the fourth movement of the Eighth Quartet) that accompanies the dying Boris as he points his accusing finger at Katerina.
But before you pop the champagne, a small caveat: although this recording dates from 1976, it is, unfortunately, in mono. The disc nevertheless sounds remarkably well on two speakers - just sample the frightening bass drum thwacks and the dramatic sheen of the chorus in the final scene ("On your feet!"), the pungency of the woodwind chords in Act 1, or the chamber-like clarity of the first Interlude. The sound is clean and spacious, and there is enough perspective to allow various instrumental details to shine through. The dynamic and tonal range is also impressive.
We will probably not be seeing any brand new recordings of op. 114, now that the original op. 29 score is readily available on CD. Despite Laurel Fay's pleading, there is no unambiguous evidence that Shostakovich preferred the revision to the original - Glikman's claims and several public comments from the composer to this effect were made at a time when the revival, and indeed survival, of his opera was at stake. Any new recording of op. 114 will have to confront the fine versions of op. 29 head-on, a task that I believe could be fulfilled definitively by a CD reissue of the 1964 Stanislavsky recording. Until then, this budget issue will do more than just fill the gap; it will be a recording you will enjoy listening to time and again, despite its flaws. And after each act you are as likely to erupt into applause as spontaneously as the Roman concertgoers did in 1976. Opera d'Oro's Katerina is a bargain not to be missed.
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Ronald
Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH, op. 79.
Murray McLachlan (piano).
Divine Art 25013. DDD. TT 75:49.
Recorded King's Hall, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 15 and 16
July 1999.
It all began in another world, on Christmas Eve, 1960, in the village of West Linton, Scotland. JFK had beaten Richard Nixon in the race to succeed Eisenhower in the White House. Khrushchev was in the Kremlin, selling oil to Fidel Castro. Castro was by turns delivering four-hour speeches to the United Nations to medusa-like effect, and storming out of his New York hotel in disgust. Cassius Clay, also disgusted, hurled his Olympic Gold Medal into the Ohio River, when he found a Louisville restaurant still wouldn't serve him as a black man, the greatest or not. More sedately, Harold Macmillan consolidated Conservative power at No. 10 Downing St., but continued the dismantling of Empire by granting Nigeria independence, and all that entailed. Dmitri Shostakovich had joined the Communist Party and written the Eighth Quartet, with a Lenin Symphony supposedly still on the stocks. In September, he had visited SuperMac's London with Rostropovich, met Britten, and spoken to the British press about the victims of fascism, in connection with his new, DSCH-laden Quartet.
Whether Ronald Stevenson, composer, scholar, virtuoso pianist, broadcaster and teacher, born in Blackburn, England, and aged 32 at the time, followed this Shostakovich trip, I don't know. Certainly his engagement with worldwide current affairs, and with left-wing politics, was beyond doubt. But by that Christmas, he was settling down at the piano at home in his adopted Scotland, and starting to fool around with the DSCH motif on his own terms, turning this topsy-turvy post-War world of ideas and events into musical notes. By May of 1962, Stevenson's private musings had mushroomed into one of the longest continuous pieces of instrumental music ever written, an enormous Passacaglia for solo piano which occupies 141 pages in the printed score, and which in performance just about fits, as you will see in the header above, within the Red Book limits for a single CD's duration.
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It's something of a pity, then, that at 83 minutes the composer's own commercial recording, for Altarus (AIR-CD-9091(2)), narrowly exceeds this limit and thus is spread over two discs, with other Stevenson works as makeweights, mirroring the original 2-LP issue. Anyone seriously interested in the work will want to hear what the composer has to say, but the Altarus set makes for an expensive introduction.
Stevenson takes a broadly Romantic, dramatic approach to a work that sounds nothing like Shostakovich nor, indeed, much like anything else in the piano repertoire. Frankly (and at the time it was written, unfashionably) tonal throughout, the Passacaglia on DSCH evokes the spirit of Stevenson's beloved (and then equally unfashionable) Busoni in its grand design and ambition, in three parts ending with a gigantic triple fugue; but it rarely sounds like Busoni, and whilst the DSCH motif is made to conjure echoes of anything from a Chopin Polonaise to African drumming, it is the individuality of Stevenson's writing that leaves the strongest impression - together with the feeling that whilst inside the Passacaglia, time stands still and no other piece of music exists.
Descriptions of the piece tend to be either technical or historical, and can make it seem forbidding. In fact it is nothing of the sort, holding the attention in a lucid and enjoyable fashion. Regardless of the Shostakovich connection, and sidestepping for the purposes of this review the issue of the history of the composers' perceived political views, it's clear that Stevenson was striking an early blow for compositional expressiveness in the teeth of Darmstadt by writing this vast, approachable and memorable work, and dedicating it to a composer he described as having "preserved the lineage of the great masters."
That quote comes from the speech Stevenson made when presenting a copy of the score to a rather embarrassed-looking Shostakovich in Edinburgh in 1962. Altarus reproduce the speech in full, a fascinating historical document now. Stevenson asserts: "Since 1914 the terrain of Western music has been a no-man's-land. Melody's rainbow has been dispersed in fragments. I want you to know that some young Western composers look to you with gratitude and hope."
Sadly, decades would pass, as would Shostakovich, before such sentiments could once more be deemed acceptable by the musical, let alone political mainstream. The Passacaglia itself, though, never quite went away. Following the 1963 premiere, the composer made a private recording, issued in an edition of 100. It was succeeded by John Ogdon's EMI studio account from 1965, sponsored by the British Council; a two-LP set that taught the work to my generation (EMI ASD2321/2322). The composer continued to play the work, and a new generation of pianists has taken up the cudgels.
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Raymond Clarke in 1993 and Murray McLachlan in 1999 (his version having taken four years to come to market) both worked closely with the composer on the Passacaglia in advance of making their respective recordings for Marco Polo (8.223545) and Divine Art. With the composer's studio account, a 1990 CD issue, this gives the prospective purchaser a choice of three current Passacaglia recordings. Each recording features "little differences" to the printed score, thanks to Stevenson's view of the continuity of the creative process, and his encouragement of the performer's input. But they all present the Passacaglia as a big, convincing whole.
The work derives from a seven-bar theme, repeated hundreds of times without transposition of pitch, though it sometimes vanishes into the surrounding pianistic maelstrom. Stevenson takes the DSCH motto, repeats it with two B-naturals at the end, then plays DSCH backwards. That's the theme: 13 notes; though as John Riley once pointed out, the rhythmic profile of the very first DSCH in the opening three bars of the Passacaglia seems to offer a characterisation of the great composer, as well as his monogram.
Right from this beginning, Raymond Clarke gives a commendably straight presentation of the score. Despite his performance apparently being assembled from disparate takes at differing venues, on different pianos, the final edit not fully representing the pianist's wishes, it does hang together very well, thanks probably to Clarke's long association with the work, and certainly to the familiar polish of his clean, superlative piano technique. The opening is cool, the acoustic dry, but the attention to the quieter, reflective music that follows is matchless, a perfect foil for the troubled nature of much of the more overt writing in the Passacaglia. The result is a moving, classical performance that gradually draws the listener in.
By contrast, Murray McLachlan projects the work's opening Sonata with a dark energy that recalls Scriabin, or Beethoven at his tetchiest; the start of a journey with real sweep and grandeur, the Passacaglia swallowed whole, as it were. McLachlan is stunning in the Fugue. Unfortunately the piano lets him down, and the upper octaves often don't sound quite in tune in quieter sections. This is a shame, as in Lisztian passages such as those on pages 11 and 12 of the score he visits worlds of fantasy and virtuosity his two competitors do not often approach. In McLachlan's hands, we're always made to appreciate the Passacaglia as a meaningful, pertinent piece of contemporary music, rather than as an anachronistic freak-show.
Stevenson's spaciously-recorded Altarus recital is more expressive, moment-by-moment, than those of Clarke and McLachlan, and is marginally the slowest performance. In a sense the Passacaglia was written to be played by a generation of pianists long dead at the time of composition, to whose Romantic, questing or cerebral spirit it forms a memorial. Stevenson plays in a manner that gives that spirit life, his technique making a softer approach to the piano's keys. Edges can seem blurred, and the work's nocturnal, twilit sections sound more phantasmagorical, pointing to the serious concerns that lie behind the music, transcending notions of pianism, or the Classical tradition. Parts of the work are labelled To Emergent Africa, In memoriam the six million, and Lament for the Children. At the dark heart of a dark century, Stevenson was not only writing unfashionably approachable music, dedicated to an unfashionable genius; he was also suggesting that music should be involved in the world around it, a world perceived idealistically as a single dwelling place, for all men and women. The tragic uncertainties of real life are every much present here, though, and the idealist is no idle dreamer.
What was fashionable in the Passacaglia, however, were the brief passages when the score demands unorthodox playing techniques; not just under and on the lid and strings, but also weird "swell" effects on a couple of individual notes, to be engineered electronically if possible, and a huge welling-up of bass-sounds in the Emergent Africa section. These do now sound like period features, linking Stevenson in an incongruous manner to his exact contemporary Stockhausen, similarly world-music inspired, but at the opposite musical pole. For a fleeting moment we think of Mantra, Stockhausen's epic piece on a similar scale from a decade later, written for two pianos and ring modulators. Then normal service is resumed.
Some commentators have found these tiny sections embarrassing, and they don't seem to add much to the work but distraction, whatever the version. Nonetheless, Stevenson was once more trying to suggest the existence of other worlds, inspired in part by the beginnings of space flight; and it is nice to think of the very first, respectable Cape Town audience being a bit horrified by those supposed jungle-drums. They sound nothing like them, actually, but the sense of threat to the norm is there. Clarke's Africa, using differing pianos, is the best, for what it is worth.
Clarke's notes to his own release are, as always, excellent, and he calls the Triple Fugue the "highlight" of the Passacaglia. After more hearings than I care to admit, I'm no longer sure I agree. As a sustained contrapuntal achievement, it is hard to think of many serious competing works written since Bach and Beethoven's op. 133; it is more than a match for the great efforts of Liszt and the various schools of organ composers in this regard. But Stevenson does incorporate the Dies Irae at the end, and since hearing Berlioz's and Liszt's comprehensive workouts for this plainchant, it has been my personal, if frivolous view that the menacing tune is due for retirement. Pianistically the final fugue section is absolutely stupendous, Clarke and McLachlan neck-and-neck in the virtuosic stakes, with the composer a little more approximate but magnificent in effect and control of colour.
This is not the end of the masterly compositional road, however, and the Final Variations suggest a grandstand-finale that does not materialise, the actual close being quiet and equivocal. The extra four minutes the Clarke recording takes over McLachlan's is accounted for in the main by his slow tempo in these last sections, which do indeed thereby become the highlight of his performance, a 13-minute coda with depths not hinted at by the bald-sounding opening; true in spirit to the composer's current conception of the Passacaglia as a birth-to-death piece. The composer's playing is more drawn-out and ethereal, spectral even in this section, and less visionary than Clarke, ending with an unfathomably low bass note of indistinct pitch, courtesy of his piano.
McLachlan is much faster then the others in the Final Variations, a tortured conclusion for his compelling, storm-tossed reading of the whole work. It's this ending above all that makes you realise the true quality of the music you've just lived-through and which, believe it or not, makes you want to go back to the start and hear it again!
This huge work has proved strong enough to survive the years, and very different pianistic approaches; the important thing is that you get to know it. So to the prospective purchaser's, and the Editor's nightmare. I suspect I may now have heard it more times than just about anyone, and the position with regard to a final recommendation is not clear. Altarus provide only one track on disc two, which contains the bulk of the Passacaglia. This is extremely unhelpful, and both competitors offer more than 30 tracks for the work, referenced either to the notes, or to listings, with appropriate title headings for each of Stevenson's sections; though there is some confusion in the matching of tracks and sections in the otherwise fine booklet from Divine Art. Properly indexed, Stevenson's version would carry obvious appeal and authority, especially as the sound quality is good, and the composer finds plenty of light and shade (mainly shade) in his own work.
You may be less worried than I about the piano tuning that mars McLachlan's riveting conception of the Passacaglia. His performance is filled with excitement, feeling and belief, and superbly executed. Clarke's sound may be less good, and the pianist may well deserve another stab at recording the work in a more cohesive manner - he still has the Passacaglia in his live repertoire, and his view will have matured - but his existing recording is still the most reliable choice at present. Perhaps a transfer from Marco Polo to Naxos would ensure a new lease on life for Clarke's commanding ten-year-old version, which achieves real profundity by the end. Which certainly isn't to say that it's a 'budget' interpretation; it is a remarkable achievement.
The classic commercial recording of the Passacaglia on DSCH is that made by John Ogdon in the 1960s. But unless you are prepared to cash in your life-insurance to buy a second-hand LP copy and a turntable to play it on, you can't hear it. The old cliché of the unavailability of a recording being a scandal is in this case simply true. Ogdon was one of the supreme pianists of the age, and this was one his finest achievements, forming one of the greatest recordings made of any repertoire whatsoever in the 20th century. The sound is a little dated, but the sense of Ogdon being there at the keys of a real grand piano is both palpable and moving. It is a magical experience. Where has it gone? Will EMI, or whoever now owns the rights please liberate this astonishing monument to musicianship and piano playing from the realms of limbo, at least for long enough for all those interested to investigate? This performance should be celebrated by the industry, not buried by it.
Perhaps by Christmas Eve 2004, Journal readers will not only have become more fully acquainted with the Passacaglia on DSCH through one or other of the excellent current recordings, but also be looking forward to finding the remastered Ogdon waiting in their stockings. It seems extremely unlikely, however, that this will happen, and interested readers are urged to investigate the work, and its alive-and-kicking composer now, before the axe falls on current versions of the Passacaglia too.
Paul
Ingram
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Twenty-four
Preludes, op. 34; Aphorisms, op. 13; Piano Sonata No. 1, op. 12;
Three Fantastic Dances, op. 5.
Konstantin Scherbakov (piano).
Naxos 8.555781. DDD. TT 66:34.
Recorded Potton Hall, Suffolk, UK, 12 and 13 February 2001.
Shostakovich's piano music continues to gain in popularity and appreciation. The present Naxos disc matches his ever-popular Three Fantastic Dances and Twenty-four Preludes with the Piano Sonata No. 1 and Aphorisms, which are both far less well-known but by no means inferior works.
The Preludes, op. 34, are first on the programme. Scherbakov's interpretation of the set leaves no doubt that here is a thoughtful and intelligent musician. Prelude No. 5 is brilliant and effortless, as is No. 11. I am impressed most of all by his rendition of the preludes of a lyrical and dance-like character, such as Nos. 8 in F#, 17 in Ab, 18 in F, 19 in Eb and 22 in G. His palette of soft and delicate sonorities is rich and he creates poetic and varied images within a dynamic range of quiet to very quiet. One word of caution, however, is that the recording itself has a very wide dynamic range, so that when mf-f passages sound fine, sections played p-pp are barely audible, requiring immediate readjustment of the volume control.
Scherbakov's attention to subtle detail is remarkable, although at times it leads to tempi that are excessively slow for my taste, with chopped lines and phrasing. This mars his interpretation of, for example, No. 6 in B minor, making it pretentious instead of humorous, No. 10 in C#, taking away its inherent semplice, No. 15 in Db, losing its propulsion and drive, and No. 24, destroying its continuity. The familiar No. 14 is also disappointingly monotonous, because its inflexible agogics do not correspond to the drama and intensity of the music. However, despite some less convincing interpretations, the cycle as a whole is refined and musical.
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In the next work, Aphorisms, Scherbakov demonstrates less imagination and sparkle than one might expect. His best performances here are No. 7, The Danse Macabre, played at an excitingly fast tempo and with an appropriately ironic flavour, and No. 4, Elegy, performed with warmth and beautiful tone. However, more often than not, I find that Scherbakov's interpretation lacks boldness and temperament. For example, the Nocturne, No.3, never reaches the required appassionato or ffff; the Funeral March, No.5, has little contrast between mp and ppp and sounds with little or no pedal where Shostakovich specifically requested pedal al segno from bar 9 to bar 22. Some odd pedalling and too-timid tone and dynamics impoverish the last, gorgeous piece, Lullaby. The only other currently available recording of this work, by Raymond Clarke (Divine Art 25018; reviewed in DSCH No. 18), is much preferable.
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Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 1 remains one of the most difficult pieces in the piano repertoire and also one that still has no traditional interpretation. It appears that Scherbakov consciously denies its romantic roots and chooses to interpret it in a similar style to Aphorisms. It is otherwise difficult to explain why the f-ff climaxes from bar 170-197 have so little pedal and sound so anaemic, why there are so many unjustified ritenutos throughout, and why the Lento section is practically twice as slow as indicated. Although I find in this performance many enchanting (albeit often eccentric) sonorities, they do not add up to form a work representative of the young Shostakovich. This piece requires a firmer structural grasp, more daring and romantic virtuosity and colours, and, most of all, much more emotional spontaneity. Raymond Clarke's splendid recital is a better choice (Athene ATH CD18; reviewed in DSCH No. 11).
On the other hand, Scherbakov's Three Fantastic Dances are charmingly performed. These are among the strongest performances on the disc, and contribute to making it a good buy overall, especially at the budget price.
Sofia
Moshevich
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Twenty-four
Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano by Alexander Blok (Nos.
4, 7, 9, 14 and 23)[a] and Dmitri Tsyganov (all others); Violin Sonata,
op. 134; Three Fantastic Dances, op. 5, arranged for violin and
piano by Harry Glickman (listed as G. Gliekman).
Ilya Grubert (violin), Vladimir Tropp (piano).
Channel Classics CCS 16398. DDD. TT 74:57.
Recorded Frits Philips Music Hall, Eindhoven, Netherlands, April 2000.
[a]World premiere recording of arrangements.
Violin
Sonata, op. 134; Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and
piano by Lera Auerbach (Nos. 4, 7, 9, 14 and 23)[a] and Dmitri Tsyganov
(all others).
Grigory Kalinovsky (violin), Tatiana Goncharova (piano).
Centaur CRC 2636. DDD. TT 66:43.
Recorded College of Staten Island Performing Arts Center, New York, 10-12
May 2002.
[a]World premiere recording of arrangements.
Violin
Sonata, op. 134[a]; Nineteen Preludes from Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34,
arranged for violin and piano by Dmitri Tsyganov[b].
Rostislav Dubinsky (violin)[a], Eleonora Turovsky (violin)[b], Luba Edlina
(piano)[a], Peter Pettinger (piano)[b].
Chandos Classics CHAN X10087. DDD. TT 60:21.
Recorded St. George the Martyr, London, June 1983[a], Snape Maltings Concert
Hall, Aldeburgh, England, 13-14 November 1986[b].
Nineteen
Preludes from Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano
by Dmitri Tsyganov; Janacek: Violin Sonata; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata
No. 1 in F minor, op. 80.
Kai Gleusteen (violin), Catherine Ordronnau (piano).
Avie/Crear Classics AV0023. DDD. TT 67:00.
Recorded Crear, Argyll, Scotland, 2-4 September 2002.
Violin
Sonata, op. 134; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major, op. 94b;
Shchedrin: Humoresque; In Imitation of Albéniz (both arranged
by Dmitri Tsyganov).
Vesko Eschkenazy (violin), Ludmil Angelov (piano).
Gega New CD 269. DDD. TT 63:26.
Recorded Auditorio de Los Rozas, Madrid, 23 and 24 April 2001.
Violin
Sonata, op. 134[a]; Viola Sonata, op. 147[b].
Oleg Kagan (violin)[a], Yuri Bashmet (viola)[b], Sviatoslav Richter (piano).
Moscow Studio Archives MOS19064. DDD. TT 67:50.
Regis RRC 1128. DDD. TT 67:59.
Recorded live[a]/studio[b] Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, 17 May
1985[a], 26 September 1982[b].
I honestly couldn't tell you what cosmological alignment might be responsible for the recent appearance of no fewer than four separate releases of Dmitri Tsyganov's arrangement for violin and piano of nineteen of the Twenty-four Preludes, three of them coupled with Shostakovich's Violin Sonata. This embarrassment of riches is further gilded on two discs by different and never-before-recorded transcriptions by other hands of the five Preludes not set by Tsyganov. Also on the menu are two additional recordings of the Violin Sonata, one of the Viola Sonata, and a smattering of attractive works by other composers.
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Shostakovich appreciated Tsyganov's op. 34 arrangement sufficiently to perform it himself, and can be heard with the illustrious Leonid Kogan on violin in Preludes Nos. 10, 15, 16 and 24, recorded in 1956 (Revelation RV 70002; deleted; reviewed in DSCH No. 9). Through no fault of his own, the composer was very much the poor cousin in that duo - as first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, it is understandable that Tsyganov uniformly assigned the choice melodies to his instrument, relegating the piano to a supportive role. It is, therefore, primarily the violin performances that differentiate the contestants here.
Violinist Eleonora Turovsky is an erstwhile student of Tsyganov's, so brings a special authority to her performances of the nineteen Preludes on Chandos' reissue. This manifests itself as a commanding grasp of each of the widely divergent moods inherent in these brief movements. Her notes may not always be as precise as those of her competitors in the current crop of recordings (take bar 35 of Prelude No. 10, for example), but there is an unfettered drama and an affinity for wry, Shostakovian humour to her readings that make the exceedingly few technical quibbles one might raise evaporate. No complaints adhere to Peter Pettinger's responsive backing on piano.
Latvian Ilya Grubert also comes with an impeccable pedigree as a former Kogan student, and his generally slower take on these pieces is marked by exquisitely pure tone. In Prelude No. 3, for instance, he handles multiple stops more cleanly than Turovsky. As revealed in the three entertaining pages of notes he contributes to Channel Classics' release, Grubert is well acquainted with the Shostakovich-Kogan recordings (which he dates, I believe incorrectly, to 1947), yet he has chosen tamer tempos than his heroes in all but No. 15. He and partner Vladimir Tropp are also generally slower than their contemporary competitors, at times to the detriment of the proceedings, as in Prelude No. 12, whose arpeggios feel positively sedated, and No. 19, where Tropp's phrasing seems wilfully hesitant.
The new duo of Canadian violinist Kai Gleusteen and French pianist Catherine Ordronneau take the opposite approach in their first recording, with a fittingly youthful, winningly innocent interpretation. Although they do not match the speed of Turovsky and Pettinger's slithery No. 5 (which would make an apt soundtrack to a centipede's foraging expedition), they are elsewhere much fleeter of foot.
Grigory Kalinovsky and Tatiana Goncharova, both connected with the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Programme at the Manhattan School of Music, are just as successful as Turovsky and Pettinger at uncovering the ironic core in many of these pieces. Their recital is also appealing for its operatic sweep, and Kalinovsky's lyricism is at times evocative of the human voice, as in Prelude No. 12.
In Preludes of a jaunty nature, Grubert and Tropp are handily bested by the other teams. Take Prelude No. 13, where Turovsky and Pettinger as well as Kalinovsky and Goncharova are deliciously angular - Indians on the warpath! - and Gleusteen and Ordronneau, swift yet soft. By comparison, Grubert and Tropp appear rather stodgy. Listen too to No. 16, where Turovsky's cheekiness overshadows the fact that she is not spot-on accurate, much preferable to the joyless, deliberate reading of Grubert and Tropp. Here Gleusteen and Ordronneau also pose stiff competition with their hearty, athletic effort, as do Kalinovsky and Goncharova with their cocky ebullience. Or again, No. 20, Allegretto furioso, where the Chandos and Centaur teams are eye-wateringly acidic, Avie's pair, effortlessly nimble, but Channel Classics' duo, ponderous.
Turn to Preludes of a more passionate cast, however, and the rivals are more evenly matched. The movement that shines most ravishingly in its embroidered instrumental garb is the Ab major Prelude, No. 17. With Turovsky and Pettinger we have a boudoir scene, perhaps some summer morning, dozing in and out of sleep next to a beloved, when one has neither need nor inclination to arise anytime soon. Less languid, Kalinovsky and Goncharova depict a soothing pastoral scene. Gleusteen and Ordronneau are equally tender but more ardent: Romeo and Juliet at the balcony. Grubert and Tropp paint with indigo a backdrop to a no less appealing but more urbanely romantic soiree.
The Channel Classics disc regains even more ground once Alexander Blok's transcriptions of Preludes Nos. 4, 7, 9, 14 and 23 are considered. While these Preludes are less ingratiatingly tuneful than those set by Tsyganov, Blok reveals deeper strata within them via arrangements that are more modernistic and freely inventive than Tsyganov's. A prime example is No. 23, in which ethereal figurations on violin shadow similarly disembodied triplets on piano. As a composer-pianist (and former student of Vladimir Tropp's at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow), Blok is also more democratic in his apportioning of melodic meat between violin and piano, especially in the polyphonic Nos. 4 and 7, which both make imaginative use of pizzicato. Best of all is the funereal No. 14, where Blok enhances the gravity of the violin's voice with scordatura. The powerful and weighty character of this piece meets a perfect match in these performers, as does the marvellously muscular No. 9, Presto.
By comparison, the young composer-pianist Lera Auerbach's transcriptions of these five pieces - a commission from Kalinovsky - are a more straightforward setting of the original score, and thus differ significantly from Blok's. In her 2000 score, Auerbach follows similar logic as did Tsyganov in his 19 arrangements to allocate notes between violin and piano. Most strikingly, in Prelude No. 7, the violin and piano roles are almost exactly reversed in Auerbach's and Blok's arrangements. Set beside Blok's Prelude No. 14, Auerbach's version sounds rather histrionic, but her take on No. 9 is at least as attractive as his, especially given the whirlwind performance it receives from Kalinovsky and Goncharova.
Whereas Chandos and Avie group Tsyganov's 19 transcriptions following the jumbled sequence in his published suites, Channel Classics and Centaur present all 24 Preludes in numerical order.
Acoustics for all four recordings of the Preludes are first-rate, though others than I might find the occasionally audible breathing of Channel Classics' performers distracting. The spacious but not agoraphobic soundstage of the Crear studio in Scotland heard throughout the Avie disc is truly outstanding, justifying the "Crear Classics" suffix on the label.
Unfortunately, it takes some getting used to the cavernous, reverberant acoustics of Chandos' recording of the Violin Sonata, made in a different venue and three years earlier than their Preludes. The ear does adjust, however, and even comes to find that the metallic reverberation fits the harsh style of Rostislav Dubinsky and Luba Edlina (for those keeping track of degrees of separation, this couple founded the Borodin Trio with Eleonora Turovsky's husband, Yuli).
Fitting, too, for that matter, to the correspondingly harsh mien of the Violin Sonata, a work that no novice would attribute to the composer of the likeable op. 34 Preludes. This music casts the listener adrift, alone, on a steel-grey sea of twelve-tone series and intervals of inhumane dissonance. Now and then, for a brief instant, hope of rescue dares rise, only to submerge as promising tones prove to be a fleeting mirage. Such moments occur just twice in the first movement: the compound major tenth that shimmers at Fig. 9, only to be swept away by a callous second, so that when it reappears at Fig. 20+4, this time augmented, we know better than to trust it - and are soon proven right not to have done so. There is no eye anywhere in the stormy second movement. The third movement is, if anything, even crueller for the way the striving peak of its dodecaphonic idée fixe is made to crumble into depressive, aimless low notes.
It comes as no surprise that Dubinsky, the founder of the powerhouse Borodin Quartet, channels with assurance the raw masculinity of the first movement's dissonant double stops and the glassy dreamworld of its tranquillo section. Those following the score will note that he does not always play by the book, but the only deviation worth mentioning is the missing acciaccatura at Fig. 59-2, which is needed to clear the air for the first statement of the third movement's main theme. Edlina more than holds her own, and her granitic bass chords and right-hand scales in the climax of the grudgingly revealed third movement are implacable, following which Dubinsky's demisemiquavers are like the shrieks of a wild creature caught in a leg-hold trap.
Grubert and Tropp phrase the Violin Sonata more musically, with effective rubato that suggests a thorough working out of the work's proportions. Grubert's technique is cleaner than Dubinsky's, and his sul ponticello trills more forceful. At times he appears to be reticent, especially in the second movement, where he underplays his glissandi at Fig. 29/0:15. That this is an interpretive decision is made plain by the forceful close to the movement. Still, there are times when Grubert's notes are virtually inaudible, as with his slurred Gs at Fig. 25/9:35 of the first movement, and, more harmfully, his tremolo B-E exhalations in the closing bars of the sonata - yes, these are pianissimo to the forte E-A inhalations, but one should not have to turn up the volume control quite so much just to hear them.
No fear of missing any notes in the hard-driven recital of the Violin Sonata from Bulgarians Vesko Eschkenazy and Ludmil Angelov. Eschkenazy, the concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, has an equally steely violin tone as Dubinsky, but like Grubert, superior enunciation. He has been performing with prize-winning pianist Angelov since 1995, and their coordination is particularly impressive in their terse second movement. Their performance is perhaps the bleakest, most inanimate under consideration here. Paradoxically, it is also the most emotionally wrenching.
A rather cinematic alternative is presented by Kalinovsky and Goncharova, who deploy expressive rubato and extreme tempos. They expand the first movement more than any of their competitors here, but at just under six minutes, their breathless second movement is around a minute shorter than all but Grubert and Tropp, who take over a minute and a half longer. This Allegretto is as dazzling a display as one might imagine from the timing. Kalinovsky's style throughout is bold and colourful, without sacrificing precision; indeed, when called on to sound a long note while double-stopping shorter ones, only Eschkenazy sustains the held note as steadily. Goncharova's dramatic manner is also impressive, especially in her solo work in the Largo, though she does merge her three semiquavers at Fig. 49/3:55 of the second movement into a single hammer blow. As exciting as this performance is, chilly elements such as the tranquillo theme of the first movement seem a few degrees too warm.
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The last Violin Sonata recording on the table arrives from two different directions: the American Moscow Studio Archives label and the UK's Regis. This document, from Oleg Kagan and Sviatoslav Richter, last appeared on Olympia, and is in all respects preferable to that duo's 1988 concert on Live Classics (LCL 183; reviewed in DSCH No. 11). This one too is a live recording, and though the audience are much more considerate than on Live Classics, they betray their presence now and then. The performance itself is brash and extroverted; there is white-hot urgency to the second movement, and Kagan is downright soulful in the third. However, synchronisation between the players is not flawless, and Kagan commits some wince-making mistakes, especially in the first movement.
The partner to this recording is also identical on Regis and Moscow Studio Archives (it comes from the same Soviet stable). This is to both labels' credit, since you won't find a more compelling recital of the Viola Sonata anywhere and the engineering is commendable. Richter and Yuri Bashmet convey the alternately questing and ineffectually flailing mannerisms of the first movement, and are pungently energetic in the second, Shostakovich's extended instrumental setting of music from his aborted opera The Gamblers. While one might suspect that the ailing composer recycled these lines because he lacked the strength to compose an original movement from scratch, I prefer to think that he could not go to his grave without first resurrecting this beloved project, albeit on a smaller scale than originally envisaged. Having done so, he bids farewell in an unsentimental but unequivocally valedictory final movement, delivered with heart-rending empathy by Bashmet and Richter.
Back to Grubert and Tropp for the remaining Shostakovich work in the pot, the youthful Three Fantastic Dances, via arranger Harry Glickman. In their hands these nuggets are unusually soft-edged and not especially fantastical, though they remain enjoyable enough in a wistful way.
The Violin Sonata is the only Shostakovich opus supplied by our Bulgarian team, but Eschkenazy and Angelov sandwich it between works not far off in spirit from the Twenty-four Preludes. Prokofiev's Second Violin Sonata, an irresistible transformation for David Oistrakh of his Flute Sonata, wins an effervescent performance, full of colour and not a few affectionate winks. Dmitri Tsyganov also puts in an appearance as arranger of two jaunty pieces by Shchedrin. Depending on your viewpoint, these are either far too slight to succeed the Violin Sonata, or exactly what's wanted to haul you back from the brink.
Gleusteen and Ordronneau follow Shostakovich's op. 34 transcription with Prokofiev's First Violin Sonata, which he originally composed for these forces. It is a more substantial work than the Second, full of spiky gestures and alien textures, and Avie's duo rise admirably to its challenges. Also on the agenda is Janacek's Violin Sonata, a delicious concoction of the composer's unique sounds and rhythms. The young musicians deserve top marks for adapting their musical language so fluently to the three very different personalities on their album.
If you must have both the Violin Sonata