Sergei Prokofiev, the great 20th century composer of such works as Peter and the Wolf, the ballet music Romeo and Juliet and music for the Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevski was also a great pianist: five of his orchestral concertos are dedicated to this instrument.
These live performances from 2004 feature noted Franco-Lebanese pianist Abdel Rahman El Bacha (b. 1958). Mr. El Bacha’s first recording, dedicated to Prokofiev’s early work, won the Grand Prize of the Académie Charles Cros.
Registering a wide emotional range, Gatti makes very familiar material seem fresh and compelling without being willfully "different."
This pair of Romeo and Juliets from Daniele Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is the conductor's fourth CD for BMG Conifer. Others include a Bartók disc, Respighi 's "Roman Trilogy," and a very effective Mahler Symphony No .5. With the Prokofiev, the trend in recent years has been for conductors to fashion their own series of selections from the compete work and to eschew the three suites the composer produced that may be musically satisfying but that ignore entirely the narrative flow of the ballet. A spectacularly successful example is a 1996 RCA disc from Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony which, at 78 minutes, presents a bit more than half of the ballet—perhaps all you really need outside the context of a staged performance. Gatti takes a middle ground. He plays most of the movements from the "official" Suites Nos. 1 and 2 (op. 64b and op. 64c) but reorders them to make more dramatic sense. Gatti states in the notes, "I have chosen to present the individual pieces as a series of colorful contrasts, as Prokofiev did, whilst retaining a semblance of the original story line."
The conductor succeeds considerably. Gatti registers a wide emotional range, rendering aptly both the most tender music and the crudest moments. He captures both the Neoclassical spirit of the work, as in his graceful, spontaneous-sounding "Juliet, the young girl," and the overtly Romantic gestures. The "Balcony Scene" has moments of exquisite delicacy, rising to a fervent tenderness; the closing "Romeo at Juliet's Tomb" is powerful, with an acutely agonized sense of grief. Those who love this music will have (at least) one of the several versions of the complete score—Maazel's, on a bargain-priced London "Double Decker" set, fills the bill nicely—and I find Tilson Thomas's balletic, well-played program indispensable. There's also still a place for the traditional, composer-approved suites: Muti's early 1980s readings of the first two, for instance.
In Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Gatti makes very familiar material seem fresh and compelling without being willfully "different." The opening minutes are permeated with a sense of longing, and when the Big Theme comes, while Gatti doesn't wallow, his performance is certainly quite stirring. From Intersound's budget-priced "Royal Philharmonic Orchestra" series, we know this venerable ensemble plays well for any good conductor; they play exceptionally well for their young Music Director. The recording is billed as having "EDR"—"Extended Dynamic Range"—and, indeed, you'd better adjust the volume level with care. The opening chord of "Montagues and Capulets" starts at a modest level, but Crescendos to a cataclysmic roar that had me diving for the gain control the first time out. The sound, generally, is nonfatiguing, with imaging and depth that are very good, if not quite state-of-the-art. The conductor's respiratory exertions are episodically audible.
There are close to 100 listings for the Tchaikovsky in Schwann Opus and dozens of Prokofiev's R & J, in various forms. Do you really want another version of these perennial favorites? You may want Gatti's.
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 & Waltz Suite / Alsop, Sao Paulo Symphony
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Aug 12, 2016
This fifth volume of the Prokofiev’s complete symphonies joins a series of acclaimed recordings from the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra with its principal conductor and music director Marin Alsop. Critics have warmly welcomed each release of this edition, from volume 1 with the Fifth Symphony from 2010, which “comes up trumps in a dramatic yet highly polished performance… an outstanding achievement” (BBC Music Magazine), to the “unfailingly good string playing, often more sensitively nuanced than that of her rivals…” (Gramophone) of volume 4’s Third Symphony.
REVIEWS:
Marin Alsop turns up with an excellent reading of the Sixth almost in spite of herself. Something in the work speaks, if not to her, then to the orchestra, which plays with fervor and intensity fully befitting the music and with considerable sensitivity to the many shades of darkness that Prokofiev here puts on display. Alsop seems more to be carried along with the music than to shape it—her overly fast finale, indeed, almost derails the movement’s effectiveness. But the performance as a whole turns out to be very successful indeed, with the gradations of Prokofiev’s anti-triumphalist writing coming through clearly and the sectional stability of the orchestra allowing the symphony’s many themes and unusual balances to emerge to fine effect. The reality must be that Alsop is responsible for shaping this very fine performance, but it almost feels as if the orchestra is playing without a conductor, with suppleness and sectional sensitivity that bring forth, all in all, a very impressive reading.
Alsop seems a stronger presence in the six-movement and altogether lighter Waltz Suite, in which Prokofiev recycled three pieces from Cinderella, two from War and Peace and one from an abandoned film project, Lermontov, into a half-hour suite that explores three-quarter time from a wide variety of angles and with numerous emotional high and low points. Again the orchestra delivers first-rate playing, and the result is a highly interesting juxtaposition of a 1945–47 symphony that is very serious indeed with a 1946–47 suite that remains determinedly on the frothy side.
– Infodad.com
Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra continue their Prokofiev series for Naxos with his sixth symphony, written as an elegy for the victims of the second world war but condemned as anti-Soviet and banned in 1948, a year after its completion. Alsop and her players handle the great climactic moments with elan but the central threnody lacks the compassion of, for example, Sakari Oramo’s recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The vibrant Waltz Suite, however, really swings, with some stylish solo playing in all sections of the orchestra.
Prokofiev: Symphony No 3, Scythian Suite... / Alsop
Naxos
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%May 12, 2015
This fourth volume in Marin Alsop’s acclaimed Prokofiev symphonic cycle features two of his most viscerally exciting works. Using material salvaged from his opera The Fiery Angel, the Third Symphony was hailed by Serge Koussevitzky at its 1929 première as ‘the best symphony since Tchaikovsky’s Sixth’. Originally commissioned as a ballet by Sergey Dyagilev but rejected as un-danceable, the Scythian Suite has become a popular orchestral showpiece, while Prokofiev retained a lifelong fondness for his dark-hued early symphonic sketch Autumn.
Review:
Even die-hard fans will admit that Prokofiev's seven symphonies aren't always magnificent and Marin Alsop's elegant lucidity provides only a partial solution to the problem. She gets unfailingly good string playing, often more sensitively nuanced than that of her rivals, but her Sao Paulo team does tend to 'normalize' the invention, smoothing away rough edges in a manner that not everyone will find idiomatic. Still, Alsop's reading works on its own terms, and if she makes the music sound as much like Roussel as Stravinsky one can perhaps discern why Serge Diaghilev chose to reject the Scythian Suite as insufficiently Russian.
While Prokofiev's first violin sonata was meant to sound "like wind in a cemetery", the second, written as a flute sonata, is characterized more by cloudless skies and an absence of concerns. Both are dedicated to the legendary violinist, David Oistrakh, who played parts of the first sonata at Prokofiev's funeral. On this recording, the Five Melodies serve as the transition between light and darkenss. The work was originally a wordless vocalise written while Prokofiev was living in the USA. It was arranged for violin and piano during his years in Paris.
REVIEW:
Båtnes and Gimse are recorded much more closely than Ibragimova and Osborne, but on top of that their playing has in general a sharper edge to the projection, which is by no means out of place in this music. One might, at first, question the measured tempo for the Moderato first movement of the Second Sonata, which adds well over a minute to the timing on the Ibragimova and Osborne disc. But on repeated listening it works, somehow bringing a touch of unease to the melody’s sultriness. In fact in the entire programme, while Ibragimova and Osborne offer telling insights into the music’s dynamic and emotional shading, the more forthright approach of Båtnes and Gimse has a valid point to make as well—not that they are in any way wanting when it comes to the allure of lyrical restraint, either in the sonatas or in the Five Melodies. Maybe this is not a decisive verdict, but I shall happily live with both versions.
Prokofiev had written two symphonies as a student but his first numbered work in the genre was the Classical Symphony, completed in 1917. This evokes, melodically though not necessarily harmonically, the world of Haydn and Mozart, and it has remained one of his most popular works. The Second Symphony, by contrast, is a work of ‘iron and steel’ (in the composer’s words), a symphony of conscious modernity and visceral power. Dreams, a ‘symphonic tableau’, reveals the potent, early influence on Prokofiev of Scriabin. Of Marin Alsop and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra’s recording of the Fourth Symphony and The Prodigal Son [8.573186], International Record Review wrote: ‘Conductor and orchestra both shine with the excitement of a special relationship in the ascendant’.
Prokofiev: Violin Concertos / Cristian, Pietsch, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Audite Musikproduktion
CD
$20.99Nov 03, 2017
Following Sergei Prokofiev's works for violin and piano, Franziska Pietsch now presents an album featuring both Violin Concertos of the Russian composer, with whose oeuvre and idiom the artist - a former promising star of the GDR - has felt at home ever since her youth. Alongside Cristian Macelaru and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin she presents a thrilling new recording. The two violin concertos represent two phases in, and two sides of, Prokofiev's life and work. The first was written during an era of early successes, stylistically and temporally close to his Symphonie classique, but not premiered until he was in exile. The second mirrors the itinerant existence of his life as a musician in exile, but also his longing to return to Russia. Franziska Pietsch, the "Anne-Sophie Mutter of East Germany" (W. Dulisch). From promising star of the GDR with a burgeoning solo career to boycott, via a new beginning, chamber music and leading orchestras, back to being a soloist and enriched by a transformed understanding of her own role: with this recording of the Prokofiev Violin Concertos, Franziska Pietsch has come full circle. Thanks to her intensive engagement with chamber music and her experience as a concertmaster, Franziska Pietsch's performances as a soloist are not only world-class, but also characterised by an exceptional sense of chamber-like intimacy.
Sergey Prokofiev was so musically precocious that no less a figure than Reinhold Gliere was employed as his live-in tutor. Gliere’s lessons proved to be both rigorous and inspiring and the young Prokofiev wrote a delightful sequence of works for the piano. Revealing an increasing command of harmony, these miniatures show why he was, at the age of thirteen, the youngest ever student to be enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. ‘Old Grandmother’s Tales, Op. 31,’ written in New York in 1918 is suffused with nostalgia, while the ‘Six Pieces, Op. 52,’ are vivid arrangements of some of his earlier works.
Sergei Prokofiev, the great 20th century composer of such works as Peter and the Wolf, the ballet music Romeo and Juliet and music for the Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevski was also a great pianist: five of his orchestral concertos are dedicated to this instrument.
These live performances from 2004 feature noted Franco-Lebanese pianist Abdel Rahman El Bacha (b. 1958). Mr. El Bacha’s first recording, dedicated to Prokofiev’s early work, won the Grand Prize of the Académie Charles Cros.
Two lovers, united by fate but kept apart by an old family feud, who can only be together in death: Shakespeare’s timeless tale, set to ballet music by Sergey Prokofiev in 1935, needs no introduction. However, this production from the Ural Opera Ballet in Ekaterinburg, which won the prestigious Golden Mask Prize as “Best Ballet” in 2017, adds interesting twists to this well-known frame, as choreographer Vyacheslav Samodurov sets his performance in a dance studio, during a rehearsal of the Romeo and Juliet ballet. This way, the characters of the play are placed out of a specific country or era: the action could take place anytime and anywhere. It could even be happening in front of your window right now: it is not by chance that the dancers reminded the audience of today’s ‘boys and girls from the Uralmash district’, as some viewers have noted in social media. The motive of struggle between the two clans disappears from the performance – it does not matter which families the street fighters belong to. The concept of repetition and inexorability of the theatrical ritual plays a central part: a tragedy is about to happen and the lovers will die today, but afterwards everyone will go home, a new rehearsal will start tomorrow, and the story will be repeated again from the start. With outstanding performances from principals Ekaterina Sapogova and Alexandr Merkushev, choreographer Vyacheslav Samodurov creates an intricate and surprisingly modern choreographical language that draws from classical movements but also from pantomime to best express the feelings and the drama at play in this eternal masterpiece.
The 20th century saw an abundance of notable Russian cellists inspiring an extensive repertoire by Soviet composers. In the cello sonatas by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both composers explore the rich and emotive timbre of the instrument with expressive subtleties and bittersweet emotions, alongside their typical touches of wit and irony. Internationally acclaimed pianist Evgeny Kissin has recently returned to composing, and his Cello Sonata is akin to a ballad in its restraint and introspection.
A colossal work that defies all boundaries: Prokofiev's monumental setting of Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. The story, set during Napoleon's Russian campaign between 1809 and 1812, is condensed by the composer into a powerful sequence of scenes in which the love story between Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky alternates in striking contrast with the depiction of the Russian army's battle against the French invasion-interwoven yet deeply connected. The music narrates how the aristocracy's rigid social hierarchy stands in the way of two young people's happiness, how seduction succeeds while an abduction fails, how some renounce their love while others fall as heroes-all while people, amidst the grandeur, search for true connection. With a wealth of magnificent themes and poignant moments, Prokofiev's operatic masterpiece merges social drama and historical chronicle into a sweeping panorama. Dmitri Tcherniakov's staging presents a gathering of people in a historically charged setting: the famous Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions in Moscow. Forced into an indefinite coexistence, they instinctively begin to embody characters, reenact conversations, scenes, and celebrations, as if drawing from a vast collective memory. What starts as an impromptu role-play soon turns into an emotional experience where the lines between assumed and genuine feelings blur. An outstanding ensemble performs under the musical direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski.
A colossal work that defies all boundaries: Prokofiev's monumental setting of Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. The story, set during Napoleon's Russian campaign between 1809 and 1812, is condensed by the composer into a powerful sequence of scenes in which the love story between Natasha Rostova and Andrei Bolkonsky alternates in striking contrast with the depiction of the Russian army's battle against the French invasion-interwoven yet deeply connected. The music narrates how the aristocracy's rigid social hierarchy stands in the way of two young people's happiness, how seduction succeeds while an abduction fails, how some renounce their love while others fall as heroes-all while people, amidst the grandeur, search for true connection. With a wealth of magnificent themes and poignant moments, Prokofiev's operatic masterpiece merges social drama and historical chronicle into a sweeping panorama. Dmitri Tcherniakov's staging presents a gathering of people in a historically charged setting: the famous Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions in Moscow. Forced into an indefinite coexistence, they instinctively begin to embody characters, reenact conversations, scenes, and celebrations, as if drawing from a vast collective memory. What starts as an impromptu role-play soon turns into an emotional experience where the lines between assumed and genuine feelings blur. An outstanding ensemble performs under the musical direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski.
Born in Zurich 1988, into a traditionally Jewish family, Anne grew up in Zurich, Washington D.C. and Basel. She started to play the violin at the age of six and was immediately drawn to the beautiful sound of this instrument. After graduating from Music-Gymnasium in Basel, Anne pursued her studies at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) with the renown teacher Nora Chastain. Another important influence she gained from an Erasmus year in Munich, studying with Ingolf Turban, famous for his virtuoso violin playing. In 2013 and 2015 Anne finished her Masters of Performance and Masters of Pedagogy with distinction. The album recording 'The Essential Hebrew Violin' with arrangements for violin and chamber orchestra recorded for the first time was inspired by a concert Anne Battegay played in 2020 on the occasion of the European Day of Jewish Culture at the Zwinglihaus in Basel.
Russian Violin Concertos / Fischer, Kreizberg, Russian National Orchestra
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Jul 21, 2023
This remarkable album marks the recording debut of German violinist Julia Fischer as well as the beginning of her extraordinary partnership with Russian-born conductor Yakov Kreizberg, which would result in numerous Pentatone releases before the conductor’s untimely death in 2011. Together they tackle three Russian violin concertos (by Khachaturian, Prokofiev, and Glazunov) which have been tragically overlooked, shedding new light on these masterpieces. After releases on SACD and vinyl, this iconic album now returns in an affordable stereo version.
Pianist Yulianna Avdeeva makes her Pentatone debut with Resilience, presenting music by Szpilman, Shostakovich, Weinberg and Prokofiev, composers who – each in their own way – maintained themselves in times of great instability. The focal point of this album is Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who survived World War II thanks to the power of his music, and is widely known as the title hero of Roman Polanski’s award-winning film The Pianist. Incited by the unique opportunity to play on Szpilman’s house piano, this recording project helped Avdeeva to cope with the challenges of our current times, and it may offer fortitude and consolation to listeners as well. A pianist of fiery temperament and virtuosity, Yulianna Avdeeva plays with power, conviction, and sensibility, having won over audiences all over the world.
All These Lighted Things / Elim Chan, Antwerp Symphony
Alpha
CD
$20.99Apr 26, 2024
Anyone who has seen the conductor Elim Chan on stage is familiar with the immense energy produced by her baton. With the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, of which she has been Principal Conductor since 2019, she celebrates a genre dear to her heart, ballet music, which places the emphasis on both physical movement and orchestral power. More than a century of ballet music is presented here, with excerpts from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suites, oscillating between passionate love and fatal violence; Suite no.2 from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, the fruit of his first collaboration with Diaghilev in 1912, which he described as a ‘choreographic symphony’; and finally a work by Elizabeth Ogonek, All These Lighted Things, premiered in 2017. Although the title of these ‘three little dances for orchestra’ comes from a poem that evokes a soothing union with the earth at the dawn of a sunny day, the piece ends with a sort of folk dance that degenerates into an orchestral storm.
REVIEWS:
Conductor Elim Chan’s remarkable ear for detail is the star ofAll These Lighted Things, her new, dance-themed album with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.
Its title comes from a short set of pieces by Elizabeth Ogonek, who wrote them in 2017 for Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Highly abstracted though Ogonek’s approach to dance forms here may be,All These Lighted Things’three movements are highlighted by a constant sense of invention and blazing colors. Particularly striking are the languid textures of the murky middle one.
The Suite No. 2 from Maurice Ravel’sDaphnis et Chloéchannels a similar sound world. Though Chan’s approach to the “Danse générale” reads a shade restrained, there’s no denying the clarity or warmth of the Antwerp ensemble’s performance. Indeed, “Lever du jour” is sumptuous and beautifully directed while the “Pantomime’s” flute solos sound fresh and improvisatory.
But it’s in Chan’s compilation of movements from the first two suites from Sergei Prokofiev’sRomeo and Julietthat her virtuosity as a conductor shines the brightest. A host of subtleties emerge, from the quietly suspended woodwind tones in “The Montagues and Capulets” to the marshmallowy textures in the middle of “Friar Laurence,” the burbling accompaniments and pattering flute figures in the “Balcony Scene,” and the luminous play of light and shadow during “Romeo and Juliet Before Parting.”
Taken with their judicious tempos and strong feeling for the music’s narrative character, Chan and the Antwerp SO provide a performance of this favorite that is revelatory in all the right and needed ways. Keep an eye on this pairing: they’re worth watching.
![Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet / Klinichev, Ural Opera Ballet Orchestra [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3787926-2559119.jpg?v=1786832684&width=800)
![Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet / Klinichev, Ural Opera Ballet Orchestra [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/81riRtw4QAL.jpg?v=1786832684&width=800)
![Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet / Klinichev, Ural Opera Ballet Orchestra [Blu-ray]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3787926-2559119.jpg?v=1786832684&width=400)
