Classical Music

This release features Ravel's works alongside pieces from composers who inspired him, including Chabrier, Haydn, Borodine, Couperin, and more. Marina Baranova seamlessly blends classical and neoclassical elements, creating a unique musical language that is distinctly her own. Each track invites you to appreciate the dialogue between these great composers, showcasing Baranova's exceptional talent and interpretative skills.

Borodin's orchestral works are invariably fresh and striking, and certainly benefit from the vivid performances they receive here.

Only two movements of Borodin’s small but perfectly formed Third Symphony exist, and these had to be completed by Alexander Glazunov, who also created the overture to the opera Prince Igor out of his recollections of the composer’s piano rendition of the piece (Borodin never wrote it down). Similarly, the ‘Polovtsian March’ from the same opera was completed and orchestrated by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. All of these, then, are fascinating examples of what one might term ‘communal composition’, a characteristic activity of the members of the Russian nationalist group known as ‘The Five’, which included both Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Whoever was ultimately responsible for the musical ideas, they are invariably fresh and striking, and certainly benefit from the vivid performances they receive from the State Symphony Orchestra playing under Evgeny Svetlanov, who gives the music a strong rhythmic profile and shapes its melodic lines sensitively.

Ironically, it is the much earlier First Symphony, written in the 1860s, which Borodin did complete himself, that has its share of undistinguished material and an occasional uncertainty of direction. Admittedly, it was more or less an apprentice piece, and its less formal central movements are highly appealing. This recording captures the characteristically Russian instrumental timbres nicely.

-- George Hall, BBC Music Magazine

Recorded in: Moscow

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: SCHEHERAZADE

Classical Music

Ahronovitch is direct and exciting and the title is well borne out by the performances. The recording is brilliant without being aggressively so, and has plenty of weight (with splendid brass sonorities in Night on the Bare Mountain) plus an effective ambience. The Sabre Dance has great energy and the Prokofiev March from Love for three oranges is nicely pointed, and it includes favourites such as the BBC TV Onedin Line theme - the Adagio from Spartacus. In short, this is excellent value and does much to recommend the L.S.O series."(Gramophone). (Tchaikovsky): "recording spectacular, and the balance truthful... fusillade of canon at the end of '1812' is impressively realistic" (Penguin Guide)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Alexander Porfireyevich Borodin was the illegitimate son of a prince and his mistress, educated at home in St Petersburg by his mother. Although music was an early passion, he discovered his avocation once he matriculated at the city's Medical-Surgical Academy. A chemist he became, and a good one, though not without his extra-curricular enthusiasms: the head of department once admonished him thus, mid-lecture: 'Mr Borodin, busy yourself a little less with songs. I'm putting all my hopes in you as my successor, but all you think of is music: you can't hunt two hares at the same time.' This release contains a selection of chamber music, great performances by the Moscow Trio and the Moscow String Quartet.

Classical Music

Classical Music

BORODIN: Piano Quintet / String Quintet