Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
The Maid of Pskov Overture
Scheherazade Op.35
Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
Symphony on Two Russian Themes
London Symphony Orchestra, USSR State Symphony Orchestra (Glinka)/Yevgeny Svetlanov
rec. live, 24 August 1968 (Glinka), 29 August 1978, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK
ICA Classics ICAC5186 [66]
These recordings, licensed from BBC Music, have been digitally remastered for ICA Classics. The excellent remastering surprised me with the quality of the sound: a testament to the skills of the original BBC engineers and Paul Baily of Re-Sound.
The disc is a showpiece for Yevgeny Svetlanov, whose ubiquitous presence on licensed Melodiya recordings graced my early LP collection in the mid 1970s to 1980s. Those recordings were characterised by a raucous edge to the sound, emphasized by blaring brass and very present strings. Svetlanov could be relied upon to present forceful, often exciting interpretations, such as his recording of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony from mid-1960s, which has never been surpassed for sheer propulsive excitement.
In most of this programme, the orchestra is the LSO. The booklet gives us some interesting information on Svetlanov’s conducting technique, and his appreciation of the LSO and English orchestras. In a revealing comment about that raucous brass, writer Jon Tolansky refers to his conversation with the Russian maestro. “I asked him about the origins of the marked vibrato in the Russian horns and the strong vibrato in the other brass instruments […] how far back in time that tradition goes? Back came the answer via the interpreter: It was not a musical tradition – it was bad playing!”Svetlanov is quoted as saying that he likes the English brass sound, but wishes that they could play “more intensively strongly”. At the end of the concert, he said he was delighted by the LSO brass, and indeed the entire orchestra.
We begin with the rarely recorded overture to Rimsky-Korsakov’s first opera The Maid of Pskov, sometimes known as Ivan the Terrible.It dates from 1868, when he also produced the first version of Antar Op.9. The overture is brass-heavy, with a brooding main theme which reminds me in part of the Song of the Volga Boatmen. At 6½ minutes, it is an interesting prelude to Scheherazade, composed some twenty years later.
Scheherazade opens with darkly brooding brass which represent the violent Sultan, and they sound pretty intensive to me. There follow soft woodwinds and a sinuous violin tune which represent Scheherazade. Interestingly, Jon Tolansky says that Svetlanov was very demanding in the way the violin should be played when portraying Scheherazade. That was in total contrast to what first violin John Georgiadis’s teacher, Sergiu Celibidache, preferred. To him, Scheherazade was a terrified thirteen-year-old girl, and her music should be played accordingly. When this opinion was communicated to Svetlanov, the response was immediate and very emphatic. “No, no”, he bellowed. ”I don’t vont leetle girl […] I vont beeg, beeg voman.” That was accompanied by his large descriptive hands, cupped in front of him!
I can say that Georgiadis’s short solo is sweetly sung and not at all hesitant. The strings that follow on are also very full, so perhaps they had been fortified to play with some Russian spirit. Overall, though, the music proceeds straightforwardly. The orchestra is obviously on their tip-toes, watching out for one of Svetlanov’s famous ‘surprises’, when he would startle the players with an unexpected change in tempo. The second movement shows his tendency to take significant accelerandi when the story behind the music suggests it; the unified strings cope very well here.
The slow movement is wonderfully melodic and highly romantic.The strings and woodwind trade phrases as though representing sighing words of two young lovers. Next, harmonies and ornamentation invoke an oriental setting. It is restrained but quite lush at the same time. When Scheherazade’s theme returns on the strings, Svetlanov has the orchestra slow down languorously; that leads into the short solo violin passage that rises to the great climax. Svetlanov obviously loves this passage, as he lingers over it to quite a degree. It is clear to me why this has long been my favourite movement.
Svetlanov was well known for taking the fast parts of the last movement very fast indeed, and so it was in this Edinburgh performance. You can almost feel the tension. He knocks almost a minute off my favourite recording, Mackerras/LSO on Telarc CD-80208, and Mackerras is no slouch. The LSO perform famously for Svetlanov – whether it be woodwind racing, strings scurrying, trumpets stuttering, or the whole orchestra racing forwards at breakneck speed to the mighty tam-tam crash. Then it all relaxes at the end as Scheherazade’s violin lulls the Sultan to sleep until the next night, when she must spin another fantastic tale… The audience are very appreciative, as indeed they should have been. As far as the recording is concerned, I detected no audience noise during the playing.
The last work is Glinka’s Symphony on Two Russian Themes from 1834. It would be wrong to dismiss it as the usual stringing along of folk tunes that Russians produced in quantity as the century rolled on. Glinka did not finish the orchestration – Vissarion Shebalin completed it – but the work was ground-breaking. It was the first to integrate Russian folk melodies into Western compositional techniques. That is why it is now considered to be a precursor of the music composed by the Mighty Handful, of which Rimsky-Korsakov was a prominent member. The two songs are Down by Mother Volga and Song of the Tavern. (In the latter, I briefly recognise a tune Borodin used in In the Steppes of Central Asia.) The work as a whole is enjoyable. The nearly sixty-year-old recording has come up well.
The disc is recommendable to anyone who has ever taken to Svetlanov’s powerhouse style, and who perhaps wants to discover his more sympathetic side in Scheherazade. It would not be my first choice, because the recorded quality, though fine, cannot compare with the most recent efforts. Glinka’s work is a historically interesting filler. The booklet, in English, German and French, says little about the music (nothing at all about the Symphony and The Maid of Pskov), but mentions Scheherazade in the course of discussions about Svetlanov.
Jim Westhead
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