Great Artists of the 20th Century: Galina Vishnevskaya
Seven Romances on Verses by Alexander Blok, op. 127[a]; Satires (Pictures of the Past), op. 109[b]; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Act I Scene III[c]; Musorgsky orch. Shostakovich: Songs and Dances of Death[d].
Galina Vishnevskaya (mezzo-soprano), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello)[a], (piano)[b], (cond.)[c, d], Nicolai Gedda (tenor)[c], Dimiter Petkov (bass)[c]. London Philharmonic Orchestra[c,d].
EMI 7243 5 62829 2 6 or Angel 7243 5 62830 2 2. ADD. TT 78:25.
Recorded 1976[a,b], 1977[d], 1978[c].

Magdalena Kozená: Songs
Satires (Pictures of the Past), op. 109[a]; Ravel: Chansons madécasses (Madagascan songs)[b]; Respighi: Il tramonto (The Sunset)[c]; Erwin Schulhoff: Drei Stimmungsbilder, op. 12[d]; Britten: A Charm of Lullabies, op. 41[e].
Magdalena Kozená (mezzo-soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano)[a,d,e], Paul Edmund-Davies (flute)[b], Christoph Henschel (violin)[d], Jirí Bárta (cello)[b], Henschel Quartett[c]: Christoph Henschel (violin 1), Markus Henschel (violin II), Monica Henschel-Schwind (viola), Matthias D. Beyer-Karlshøj (cello).
Deutsche Grammophon 471 581-2. DDD. TT 63:47.
Recorded Max-Joseph-Saal, Residenz, Munich, March 2003[a, c-e], Studio 1, Abbey Road Studios, London, June 2003[b].

EMI have at last collected on a single disc studio performances of Galina Vishnevskaya singing works by Shostakovich. The programme would seem to be one of necessity: three of the four works therein - the Blok Romances, the Satires and the arrangement of Musorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death - are personal dedications. For those who have yet to hear these classic renditions dating from the 1970s and once spread across as many individual albums, a rare treat is in store. No one can claim a more privileged vantage point for the interpretation of this music than Vishnevskaya herself. The many years of close friendship that she, along with her husband, Mstislav Rostropovich, enjoyed with Shostakovich, combined with their remarkable musical gifts, allowed both a unique and authoritative perspective on the man and his music. The current disc offers a tribute to Ms. Vishnevskaya's artistry, with accompaniment in various forms by Rostropovich, in an all-Shostakovich vocal programme that is part of EMI's Great Artists of the Century series.

Readers may recall a BMG/Melodiya CD (74321 53237-2; deleted) with nearly the same programme, with Prokofiev's Akhmatova cycle replacing the Lady Macbeth selections, issued a decade ago, featuring Vishnevskaya in series of live concerts dating from the 1960s. That recording has historical value in documenting the world premiere of the Blok Romances with an all-star cast of performers: cellist Rostropovich, violinist David Oistrakh, and composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg on piano. While the excitement of those live performances is hard to match, the studio sessions with EMI find Vishnevskaya in superior technical control and her musical insights more fully sharpened.

Vishnevskaya is at her most impressive in Musorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death. Shostakovich's celebrated orchestration of 1962, used here, considerably broadens their expressive range while remaining idiomatically faithful to the original piano score. In their new garb they are all the more conducive to an operatic style of interpretation and, appropriately enough, to Vishnevskaya's dramatic instincts. That combination works ideally in these four mini-dramas, which are given as operatic a treatment as one will find anywhere. In the opening Lullaby listen to Vishnevskaya's agility in taking on the quickly shifting roles in the dialogue between Death and the mother, or her menacing edge as she brings Death's message to an exhausted wanderer in the following Trepak. There is a disquieting radiance to the soaring lines in Death's Serenade. Vishnevskaya is again fierce in the final Field Marshal, where the broad tones of Death's final conquest are uttered with chilling intensity. Some listeners may find Vishnevskaya's brand of vodka a bit too strong for their taste. But rarely will one find an interpretation of this deeply Russian work that shines with as much dramatic vitality. She is well supported by Rostropovich leading the LPO in a recording that gives her favourable prominence, even if the orchestral image is a bit vague. Listeners may be interested in another fine, richly expressive, if not as extreme performance of this music that is given by Brigitte Fassbaender, whose commanding presence and immaculate tones are found on the Järvi/Gothenberg survey of Shostakovich's vocal music (Deutsche Grammophon 437 785-2GH; deleted). The details of Shostakovich's orchestration are registered with exemplary clarity in this version.

Another classic performance follows with the Satires cycle. These black humoured verses of Sasha Chorny take aim at a number of favourite targets of Shostakovich and the Rostropoviches: art critics, Philistinism, and the new Soviet idealism as represented in the liberalizing cultural climate of 1960. Here, the music's offbeat modulations and accented dance rhythms find Shostakovich at his most wryly irreverent. If sung with too much classical poise, as even a distinguished a singer as Irina Bogacheva demonstrates in the orchestral version under Rozhdestvensky (Melodiya C10 22267 009; deleted), the humour can be fatally leaden. Vishnevskaya had it right when she said that the work is ideally suited to "a music hall singer with an operatic voice" (this is exactly the quality of her great voice). Here she brilliantly straddles both worlds, the straight lace of art song and the swagger of cabaret, and to wonderful effect. Without batting an eyelash, Vishnevskaya moves from cantilena to enunciated verse to flying waltz rhythms with a kind of stoic reserve of mockery that is characteristically Russian. The style may be a bit heavy handed; yet it's suitably supported by Rostropovich's nimble but hard-knuckled accompaniment. The sense of parody is very much alive without being excessive, and everywhere present. Vishnevskaya lays out the schmaltzy and climactic episodes of Spring's Awakening and Misunderstanding on a grand silver platter; and she keeps the racing waltz of Descendants on a high emotional plane to the very last yelp.

The soft edged, Franco-Slavic sensibilities of Magdalena Kozená's mezzo-soprano (she is Czech by birth) bring a quite different set of values to these Satires. Kozená's freely taken tempo shifts make for a lively performance, where pronounced accelerandi - as in the giddy finales of the third and last songs - and liberally applied rubati emphasize the contrasting sections in these settings with good results. Her segues, especially across the odd juxtaposition, are effortless, and lend what one might call a foxy elegance to her performance. Note the magisterial tempo with which she takes the Red Army-style march in the fourth song, Misunderstanding, whose syrupy cantilena section she sings with eloquent sincerity. The tones of derision are nicely spun. If some of the Russian weight of these Satires is lifted in this rendition, Kozená misses no detail of their intended whimsy. Neither does pianist Malcolm Martineau, whose crisp, cabaret sensibilities provide a perfect foil.

The Blok Romances occupy a unique place in Shostakovich's oeuvre, in part for their piano trio accompaniment, used piecemeal, with an unrepeated instrumental combination in each song; and in part for the uncommon poignancy and eloquence with which they take up issues of morality and artistry - ongoing themes in Shostakovich's music. A further level of integrative unity is achieved by the expressive layout of the songs that, by alternating moods, attain progressively deeper emotional states as the cycle unfolds. The childlike vulnerability of the first and third songs, for example, is offset by songs of anger, outrage, and lamentation. The contrasts are at last gathered together, like the collapse of galactic arms toward a common centre in the last three songs, leading to the final song's dramatic crux, providing the shattering and inevitable moment of epiphany. The cycle is a work of unparalleled unity and cumulative power among Shostakovich's cycles and for that reason deserves to be called his masterpiece in the genre.

Perhaps more than any other Shostakovich cycle, the interpretive demands made by these Romances have resulted in very few totally satisfying performances. One of outstanding merit of recent years is given by soprano Natalia Gerassimova (Saison Russe RUS 7288088; reviewed in DSCH No. 14) whose exquisite pacing is as memorable as her unmatched tenderness and power. Gerassimova also receives particularly strong support from the Moscow Trio. Vishnevskaya's interpretation succeeds more on its visceral than psychological penetration of the Blok verses. The mournful quality of the opening Ophelia's Song and the sensitivity of We Were Together are superb. Her deep feeling for the cantilena in The City Sleeps leaves a lasting impression; likewise her robust tones in the heightened drama of Gamayun and The Storm. As the last two songs move into that crux, so does Vishnevskaya with fervent intensity. The climactic summary in the final Music, especially as delivered by the artist to whom the work is dedicated, has an arresting effect. How could it not? Technically and emotionally, it is far more seasoned than the live version on Melodiya previously mentioned.

The last offering on the EMI disc is Act One, Scene III from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, surely one of Vishnevskaya's landmark operatic roles. She once again shows herself to be a soprano of impressively broad range, at first with a touching rendition of Katerina's lament over her joyless life. This is followed by an incomparably lusty version of the infamous seduction scene. Heard in all of its splendour is the opera world's first "pornophonic" episode, from the initial rapping on Katerina's door, through a lot of thrilling rhythmic activity, to the detumescent trombone slides and the orchestral postlude. Vishnevskaya and the appropriately virile tenor Nicolai Gedda as Sergei are in top form in a sequence that is guaranteed to bring a smile and accelerate the pulse.

For its direct connection to Shostakovich's inner circle and moreover, its set of infallibly idiomatic performances of essential repertoire, this Vishnevskaya recital disc is one that cannot be passed up.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the remaining pieces on Magdalena Kozená's recital disc by Ravel, Respighi, Britten, and Schulhoff. Each is sung in its original language - French, Italian, English, and German. The linguistically gifted Kozená has a particular affinity for songs from the lesser-known corners of the catalogue, and with the exception of the Shostakovich Satires (which is sung in Russian) to songs of a moody and sensuous nature. Her colourful programme is well tailored to her gifts. Case in point is Ravel's now seductive, now barbaric Madagascan Songs for voice, flute, cello, and piano. She shows particular versatility conveying the idiosyncratic moods of Britten's Charm of Lullabies; and much sympathy in Respighi's intimately expressive Sunset with string quartet accompaniment; and again with the melancholic and inward looking Three Atmospheric Portraits by fellow Czech, Erwin Schulhoff.

Louis Blois
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DSCH No. 21.
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