TCHAIKOVSKY: Songs (Complete), Vol. 2

TCHAIKOVSKY The Nutcracker • Pavel Klinichev, cond; Nina Kaptsova ( Marie ); Artem Ovcharenko ( Nutcracker Prince ); Denis Savin ( Drosselmeyer ); et al.; Bolshoi Ballet; Bolshoi Th O & Children’s Ch • BELAIR BAC 073 (DVD: 103:00); BAC 473 (Blu-ray: 103:00) Live: Moscow 12/2010


The Bolshoi Ballet is celebrating the 85th birthday of choreographer Yuri Grigorovich, a subject of veneration in his homeland even though his talent outside Russia has always been questioned. In addition to such original works as Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible , Grigorovich has also attacked several 19th-century classics with limited success, of which his Nutcracker is an example. It is difficult to know how much of Petipa and Ivanov’s choreography survives, as few versions are comparable, though one might assume that Balanchine comes close in many respects as do the versions that descend from Sergeyev’s notation. For some reason each of the character dances in the second act here is given to a couple, rather than varying between soloist, couple, or trio or larger group. The final pas de deux is—as usual in Soviet versions—disfigured by the use of a male corps that separates the dancers while hoisting them aloft for the music’s climax so that they are separated rather than joined in communion. Grigorovich’s limited vocabulary is also wearying, whether in the Snowflakes scene or the Waltz of the Flowers. Choreographing people arriving at the party is not a successful idea with repetitive movements for all.


Within this framework, Nina Kaptsova and Artem Ovcharenko stand out for their enthusiasm and brilliance, while Denis Savin as Drosselmeyer is given far more dance movement than in other versions of the ballet. Pavel Klinichev and the Bolshoi Orchestra are entirely at home in this music, glowing throughout. But it is unfortunate that such a farrago is maintained in the repertory.


FANFARE: Joel Kasow

When she is finally released from an evil spell by the kiss of a young prince, the Sleeping Beauty awakes and is- in spite of a hundred years of sleep- as beautiful as a young woman. The love of the prince is simply stronger than the curse that rests on the haunted princess. The artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin, Nacho Duato, has brought new life to this beloved classic, which itself is over a hundred years old and for which Tchaikovsky has composed the unforgettable music. This production demonstrates that Nacho Duato can also tackle classical ballets with dance en pointe with great success. Nothing in this production is old and dusty, rather the entire choreography looks fresh and is bursting with vitality and brings an air of spring to the stage. The costumes by Angelina Atlagic deserve likewise admiration as they sparkle on stage like spring buds in morning dew. The stage design, also designed by Atlagic, offers a refined setting for the ballet fairy tale. The décor of this production is highly imaginative and colorful, yet at the same time very elegant and stylish.

The "Evening of Roland Petit Ballets" is made up of two one-act ballets. The first - "Passacaille" is to music by Anton Webern, including his "Five Pieces" Op. 5 in the arrangement for string orchestra and "Passacaglia" Op. 1. "Pique Dame" uses music not from Tchaikovsky's opera but from his Symphony no 6.

With the Symphony No. 3, popularly referred to as the “Polish,” Mikhail Pletnev here completes his second cycle of the composer’s symphonies with the Russian National Orchestra. An earlier cycle dating from the 1990s with the same orchestra is still readily available on Deutsche Grammophon. Pletnev’s new cycle has much to recommend it. For starters, it’s all of a piece, by which I mean all six symphonies are performed by the same forces, for the same label (PentaTone), and they’re all in multichannel SACD format. As is true of most cycles, Pletnev’s is uneven. I raved about the conductor’s “Pathétique” in 35:3 and, having depleted my repertoire of adjectival superlatives on it, I was hard-pressed to express my even stronger endorsement of his “Little Russian” (No. 2) in 36:2. But my recommendations came with a caution that Pletnev’s approach to Tchaikovsky was super-charged and hyper-romantic.

Subjected to the scrutiny of others, not all of Pletnev’s releases in this new cycle have received unstinting praise. Colleague Boyd Pomeroy wondered if the conductor’s Fourth wasn’t too refined in a Karajanesque manner, while Peter J. Rabinowitz generally approved of Pletnev’s Fifth but noted some balance problems and a trace of the old Soviet vibrato. And even yours truly, after waxing ecstatic over Pletnev’s “Pathétique,” was not entirely convinced by the conductor’s follow-up “Winter Daydreams” (No. 1) in 35:6.

With this No. 3, we have the final curtain call for Pletnev’s PentaTone cycle and, as cycles go, I’d have to give this one an overall outstanding rating. Personally, I can’t get too excited about Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony. As I said in my review of Pletnev’s Second, between the Second and Third, it’s a tossup as to which is the weakest of Tchaikovsky’s six numbered symphonies. The Third Symphony was composed in fairly short order between June and August 1875, and there’s little evidence that Tchaikovsky fretted over it or kept tweaking it as he did with his First Symphony. For the neurotic and generally insecure composer, it seems that he was satisfied with the completed score and called it done. His only complaint was that the first performance could have gone better had there been more rehearsals. The work is unique among Tchaikovsky’s symphonies in that it’s the only one in five movements, and, unless one counts the composer’s abandoned Seventh Symphony in E?-Major, it’s the only one among the standard six that’s in a major key. It seems I’m not alone in my opinion of the work. Critical commentary has been mixed at best. Musicologist David Brown rated the Third, “the most inconsistent and least satisfactory of the symphonies and badly flawed” ( Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878 , and Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1855–1893 ). And to that I would add the least consequential.

If the score is one you find appealing, I can think of no better proponent of it than Pletnev. As with all previous releases in this cycle, Pletnev has the Russian National Orchestra playing in top form, and he finds many felicities in the piece, like the coquettish wind asides in the Alla tedesca movement that delight the ear and give Tchaikovsky’s note-spinning a serenade-like gracefulness.

The Coronation March that fills out the disc—or, to give its full title, Festival Coronation March —is one of those potboiler pieces composers are often called upon to provide for political events or ceremonies of state. In this case, the ceremony was the coronation of Tsar Alexander III in 1883. Tchaikovsky received the commission to write the piece from Moscow’s mayor—it was more of an order than it was an offer—while he was in Paris working on his opera Mazeppa , and he was royally roiled, writing to Nadezhda von Meck, “My plans have been upset by two unexpected and very burdensome tasks foisted upon me. The city of Moscow has commissioned from me a ceremonial march to be played at the festivities which are to be organized for the Sovereign at the Sokol’nikii. Hardly had I managed to reconcile myself to the thought that I must tear myself away from the opera for the march, when suddenly I received a letter from the festival committee about a cantata. Both works, especially the cantata, have to be ready very soon, a prospect which fills me with dread.” If he’d put as much time and effort into working on the assignments as he did kvetching to von Meck about them, he might have produced something more worthy of his reputation. Still, in the end, Tchaikovsky seems to have thought highly enough of his march to make a piano transcription of it. Shades of the 1812 Overture come to mind, but without the cannon, carillon, or La Marseillaise , and all condensed down to less than seven minutes. It’s not very good, but at least it’s loud.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.



TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4. Romeo and Juliet • Mikhail Pletnev, cond; Russian Natl O • PENTATONE 5186 384 (SACD: 60:19)


This is not a reissue from the mid-1990s cycle on DG (recently repackaged in a bargain box), but a brand new recording. I don’t know if it portends a second complete cycle from Pletnev, but on this evidence that would be most welcome.


His overall conception of the symphony has not changed radically since DG in 1995, with many of the same distinctive interpretive touches. But everything is now in sharper focus, more acutely characterized, more subtle in nuance. Tempos are significantly faster in all four movements, and the DG now leaves a comparatively flat, bland impression.


Having said that, the reading will still not be to all tastes—Karajanesque in its extreme refinement, with legato suaveness of style, smoothed-out attacks, and rounding of staccato articulations. At the same time there is a balletic grace and an aristocratic quality reminiscent of Mravinsky. To a surprising degree, Pletnev’s conception of the first movement minimizes contrast between the first and second themes—the former phrased with wondrous subtlety, the latter taken very fast and smoothly. In the B-Major third theme the dead-center tuning of the soft timpani is a real (and rare) pleasure. The development is played for transparency, the buildup into the recapitulation tightly controlled, but projecting a remarkable sense of simmering power under the surface. The coda has an extraordinary feathery beauty, sinuously shaped even in the fff affirmations of the last page. Of the Old School Russian sound there is barely any hint, though a subtle trace of the old trademark horn vibrato remains in the recapitulation of the second theme. In Pletnev’s hands the Andante is a cool study in understated blue-grays; the pizzicato scherzo velvet in tone, shaped with exquisite subtlety. In the finale he radically downplays the bombast, with light, transparent balancing of the massive textures, and graceful, shapely phrasing.


Cool transparency is again the watchword in the slow introduction to Romeo and Juliet —though for all the avoidance of old-style Russian excess, the players’ national ancestry still seems to come through in an intensely characterful, nasal quality to the string sound at bars 11 ff. The Allegro giusto memorably combines silky refinement and rhythmic snap; the love theme has an icy tonal purity to the strings, with a concentrated, highly individual shaping of the line that really is quite special. The theme’s climactic reprise similarly demonstrates a remarkable balance of aristocratic poise and impulsive surge, again with a suggestive hint (but no more) of old-style Russian brass vibrato.


The recording balances a realistic concert hall perspective with exemplary sharp focus of detail (I can’t comment on the surround sound). Altogether superbly distinctive, and well worth adding to your collection even if you already own the DG versions.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Gothenburg Symphony OrchestraNeeme Jarvi, conductor Symphony no 1 in G minor "Winter Dreams", Op. 13; Romeo &Â?JulietSymphony no 2 in C minor "Little Russian", Op. 17; Overture in FSymphony no 3 in D major "Polish", Op. 29; The Snow Maiden, Op.12Symphony no 4 in F minor, Op. 36; Symphony no 5 in E minor, Op 64Symphony no 6 in B minor "Pathetique", Op. 74; The Tempest;Overture on the Danish National Anthem; Voyevoda Dances;Dmitri Pretender and Vassily Shuisky; Serenade for N.Rubinstein;Capriccio Italien; Francesca da Rimini; etc.

Tchaikovsky’s final three symphonies form an emotional roller-coaster ride with the most desperate lows (the first movement of the Fourth) and hectic highs (the Finale of the Fifth) before arriving at the resigned lament that is the closing Adagio of the Sixth. As the composer himself readily admitted, he had little interest in writing ‘abstract’ music – to his colleague and friend Taneyev he wrote: ‘I should not wish symphonic works to flow from my pen that express nothing, and which consist of empty playing with chords, rhythms and modulations.’ This has given rise to numerous speculations and attempts to interpret Tchaikovsky’s works, and especially these symphonies, in terms of events in his personal life. While the fruitfulness of such an approach is debatable, it is certain that the immediate appeal of the music itself has caused these symphonies to become favorites with musicians and listeners alike. On the present release, it is Christian Lindberg and his Arctic Philharmonic, based in the far north of Norway, that perform the symphonies. While the recordings of the Fourth and Sixth appear for the first time on disc, that of Symphony No. 5 has been previously released (on BIS-2018) on a release that earned international praise: ‘a superb performance’ was the verdict of the critic in International Record Review, while the French magazine Diapason accorded it top marks.

Dazzling keyboard artistry from the Kodama sisters in rare arrangements of Tchaikovsky's evergreen ballets. Together for the first time in the recording studio, the sisters Mari and Momo Kodama are on scintillating form in these lively arrangements of music from Tchaikovsky's ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker. In another first, the release contains the first ever recording of Arensky's transcription of the timeless Nutrcracker together with notable arrangements by Debussy and Rachmaninov. "Tchaikovsky was really the first composer to combine a broad sweep of ballet music with a great story," the Kodama sisters write in their introduction to the release, "before that, it more resembled a compilation of pieces...in all three works there is folkloric and popular music. He has the great skill to make scuh vivid colors and textures on a large canvas...This makes his orchestral works very special." The sisters Mari and Momo Kodama both pursue busy international careers. Momo specializes in French and Japanese composers and 20th century and contemporary composers - she has been widely praised for her "attractive, lyrical tone" and "technical brilliance". Mari has established an international reputation for profound musicality and articulate virtuosity - she has recorded extensively for Pentatone, including an acclaimed cycle of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4, Op. 36, 1812 Overture, Op. 49 &

With his Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, Lindberg records Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony—one of the composer’s best-loved works.

Peter Tchaikovsky composed one of the most popular piano concertos in the repertory, but in solo recital programmes his name is rarely seen. Although little known, his solo piano music can nevertheless be surprisingly rewarding. It includes two large-scale sonatas, a youthful work in C-Sharp Minor, and the Grand Sonata in G major recorded here and a large number of mainly short pieces published either singly or as collections throughout the composer's life. This type of work was profitable for composer and publishers, and an indication of the relative commercial value comes from a letter in which Tchaikovsky offers his publisher the Grand Sonata for only 50 roubles, but asks 240 roubles for the twenty-four little pieces of his Children’s Album, Op. 39. A work of big, public gestures, the sonata is anything but childish and to a large extent Tchaikovsky keeps the lyrical ideas that came so naturally to him firmly under control.

In contrast, lyricism was given free rein two years earlier, in the twelve pieces that make up The Seasons. They were the result of a commission for a series of piano pieces to appear in a monthly St Petersburg journal. Some ten years after the serial publication in the journal the pieces appeared in print as a collection which has become Tchaikovsky’s best-known solo piano music. As with much of his work in this genre, the ultimate model is Schumann: January, for example, combines hints of Schumannesque Innigkeit with Tatiana’s music in Eugene Onegin. With the present recording Freddy Kempf, who made his acclaimed début recording with Schumann's Carnaval and has gone on to demonstrate his versatility in programmes taking in Bach as well as Liszt and Stravinsky, now adds Tchaikovsky to his discography.

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

In 2005 it was over 30 years since the Zurich Opera House had seen a performance of probably the world’s best-loved ballet, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The Zurich Ballet, which has become one of the world’s leading dance ensembles under Heinz Spoerli’s direction, raised this famed work from its slumber with a dream team to tackle this classic anew. Zurich Ballet Director and choreographer Spoerli has long been confirmed as a master storyteller and an imaginative renewer of the genre: with the support of set designer Erich Wonder and costumier Florence von Gerkan he has devised a new and contemporary version of this classic dance tale that has been eagerly awaited by ballet enthusiasts all over the world, in this his third production of Swan Lake. Top Russian conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev ensures an evening of musical excellence, too.

Region: All

José Serebrier's distinctive conceptions and nimble conducting imbue the familiar Marche slave, Capriccio italien, and 1812 Overture with a freshness that belies their long-held "warhorse" status. By employing lighter sonorities and crystal-clear balances (all rendered with spectacular fidelity and dynamism by BIS's remarkably vivid recording) that expose Tchaikovsky's gorgeous woodwind writing and inner harmonic detail, Serebrier brings a vibrant youthful quality even to the overplayed 1812. Listen to how the bracing opening, with its cleanly phrased, rhythmically taut string playing fosters ever-increasing tension. Later, in the grand coda, the dramatic brass-and-strings interplay genuinely excites while cannons roar away in the distance (the opposite approach to Telarc's cannon-down-your-throat technique).


Serebrier's light and balletic rendition of the rarely heard Fatum is in marked contrast to the heavier variety offered by Slatkin, yet it nonetheless doesn't shy away from the raucous percussion that makes this rather naïve piece a real kick (just what does all that booming and crashing have to do with an inexorable "fate" anyway?).


Tchaikovsky's elegant and sweetly melancholy Élégie, and Serebrier's own arrangement of the Andante cantabile from the String Quartet No. 1, come as relaxingly gentle interludes between the noisier selections on the disc, all of which receive probing and polished performances by the Bamberg Symphony. Even if you think you've heard this music one too many times, you'll likely find this disc a rewarding listening experience.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Despite a sonic soundstage that places the orchestra and soloist in a position akin to viewing celestial beings from the wrong end of a telescope, these are simply fabulous performances. It's good to have the Third Concerto in its conjectural three-movement manifestation (Tchaikovsky completed a first movement, which consigned it to a stand-alone composition, while Tanyev reconstructed a second and third movement from outlines Tchaikovsky had sketched for an ultimately rejected symphony), especially in a reading full of enough sweep and passion to outdistance Peter Donohoe's fine EMI traversal. Konstantin Scherbakov's sparkling, assured fingerwork in the cadenzas alone is a selling point--and the First concerto is a keeper, no doubt about it! It's fast, it's fluid, and it's utterly without airs, mannerisms, and pretentions.


Unlike other pianists who milk the lyrical unaccompanied sections out of shape, or dive into the octave sequences as if they were sporting events, Scherbakov's organic feeling for tempo relationships and musicianly virtuosity binds everything together, and the Russian Philharmonic musicians play their hearts out under Dmitry Yablonsky's uplifting direction. For superior sound, sophisticated orchestral execution, and soloistic individuality, it's worth spending the extra cost for Argerich/Abbado (DG) or Volodos/Ozawa (Sony). But give this release a try, and don't be surprised if you return to it more often than you've anticipated. [6/9/2004]
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Talk about rotten luck. Naxos has had these performances in the can for a couple of years, and have just released them, hot on the heels of Julia Fischer’s recent Tchaikovsky disc on Pentatone, containing exactly the same programme. The only difference is that Kaler plays Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d’un lieu cher in Glazunov’s orchestration, while Fischer plays the original version for violin and piano.

I fear that in all the excitement over Fischer’s album, Kaler’s will be ignored, and that would be incredibly unfair because this disc is excellent in every way. In fact, Kaler’s account points up the only deficiency in Fischer’s account: a lack of variety to her tone. Kaler's performance is full of contrasts, as he colours the violin line with subtle shading, yet maintains a lyrical virility throughout. It is clear that he has lived with this concerto under his fingertips for many years and that he still finds much to enjoy and inspire in the familiar turns of phrase. There is an artless facility to his playing of the big tunes as in the opening statement of the first movement or in the gorgeous Canzonetta, and a sweetness of tone that is quite disarming. As the violin writing gets busier, Kaler and the orchestra tend to pick up the pace quite significantly, yet the rapid passages are dispatched with effortless brilliance. Kaler's first movement cadenza has plenty of character, freedom and precision. Cadenzas apart, Yablonsky and his orchestra lend sympathetic support. This performance is not so much a full-blooded flood of romanticism as a blossoming account of elegance as well as brilliance. It also wears it war-horse status lightly, impressing itself upon the listener by virtue of its freshness and natural feeling. It is a tremendously satisfying account and one that bears rehearing.

Similar comments apply to the remaining pieces on this album. The quality of the music, both in terms of its inspiration and emotional content, makes this programme apt and it is hard to understand why it is not more common. The Sérénade mélancolique is quite a rarity, but it deserves to be far more popular. It was in fact Tchaikovsky's first piece for solo violin, written to a commission from the great Leopold Auer. The violin's part is so full of longing and achingly beautiful that it is almost a vocalise. There are striking effects of orchestration too, with some magical woodwind interplay underpinning the sighing of the violin.

The Souvenir is, if anything, even more engaging. The first of its three movements was initially intended as the second movement of the violin concerto, with the spakling scherzo and intimate melodie added later. The dark romanticism of Glazunov's orchestration is entirely idiomatic and Kaler's playing is sweet toned and brightly coloured. The little Valse-Scherzo that closes the disc makes an excellent encore and Kaler plays it with gusto.

Microphone placement favours Kaler throughout, but this is generally not overly problematic except for the first movement of the Souvenir where Kaler's breathing is a little distracting. Keith Anderson's liner-notes are up to his usual high standard.

If you are in the market for a new recording of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto this year, have a listen to this one before just buying Fischer’s. You may find, as I did, that you want both.

-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International

Slovak-born composer and conductor Peter Breiner has received considerable international acclaim for his adaptations, and his Tchaikovsky arrangements are particularly impressive examples of his art. He has already arranged The Seasons (8.553510) and Songs (8.555332) but here he turns to opera. With deftness and subtlety he has taken motifs from Tchaikovsky’s first opera Voyevoda to craft six richly scored movements, two of which have rôles for solo strings. The Queen of Spades was composed in 1890 and Breiner’s selections fully explore the music’s romance and drama in their new form.

This is the final disc in the Naxos edition of the complete Tchaikovsky songs, which represent a little-known but highly characteristic facet of his musical personality. "Kazarnovskaya possesses a soprano rich in timbre and powerful in projection.

This is not a disc of highlights from the Tchaikovsky opera, but a balletic condensation of the Pushkin story on which the opera is based. The musical adaptation was made by Gabriel Thibaudeau for Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens de Montréal in 2001. In his accompanying notes, M. Thibaudeau states that “to make the material fit for the ballet framework, we had to cut out many sections (the opera lasts over three hours, the ballet 80 minutes) while at the same time retaining musical coherence. And, just like Tchaikovsky, I had to compose new music to maintain the dramatic tension.” Except for the ambiguous last sentence, this is a fairly accurate statement but, in the interest of the opera-oriented reader, I should elaborate further.



The balletic action unfolds in seven sections. Part 1 (18:37), the longest, sets the mood with the Countess’s aria, “Je crains de lui parler de nuit,” a melody Tchaikovsky borrowed from Grétry for period flavor. Motives associated with Gherman’s troubled character then lead to events occurring in the Private Gaming Club, with the music of Tomsky and his comrades entertaining themselves with the mysterious legend of the “Three Cards,” as the scene concludes with the return of the Grétry melody. Without having seen the ballet, the impression is clearly conveyed that the Old Countess is the drama’s principal character.


Part 2 is misleadingly called “A Park in Leningrad” (for reasons known to its creators, the ballet represents the Soviet era of 1938). This is a lyric episode embracing Pauline’s aria and her duet with Lisa, reasonably true to Tchaikovsky’s music, with a discreet accordion part added to the orchestration. The lengthy part 3 (“Soirée au ballet”) combines the opera’s Mozartian pastoral music and the love themes from the Lisa/Gherman scene. The combination may sound incongruous on paper, but it is no doubt effective choreographically, culminating with an exciting “Pas de deux.” Part 4 (“At the Countess’s Home”) is a skillfully condensed free musical elaboration of the turbulent scene involving, again, the Grétry aria, Gherman breaking the solitude of the frightened Countess, her sudden death, and Lisa’s shocked reaction.


Part 5, called “The Funeral,” opens with Gherman in the barracks, with trumpet sounds in the distance. The ghost of the Countess makes her appearance and reveals the secret of the “Three Cards.” Part 6 (“At the Bridge”) nicely condenses Lisa’s desperate third-act aria with the subsequent intense duet with Gherman and Lisa’s suicide. The concluding part 7 takes us back to the Private Gaming Club, with its busy Prokofiev-style gambling atmosphere. We hear expressions of Gherman’s despair, interwoven reflections of the love music, suggestions of the tragic end, as the “Grétry motive” provides a pianissimo underpainting to Gherman’s dying moments.


Lovers of this opera should know that Prince Yeletsky does not appear in this ballet—nor is he present in the Pushkin novel. Accordingly, there is no reference here of the Prince’s gorgeous aria, which, however justified, is a pity. Still, the ballet is put together with great skill and is undeniably pleasing to the eye and ear. The musical presentation is fine, but the recorded sound, with its lack of depth and immediacy, is somewhat colorless.

FANFARE: George Jellinek

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

The fourth volume of the BIS Tchaikovsky cycle focuses on Symphony No. 2, nicknamed for its use of themes from the folk music of Ukraine ('Little Russia'). The first presentation of the work, at a private gathering, was a welcome success for the young Tchaikovsky in 1872: 'The entire assembled company almost tore me apart with delight, and Mme Korsakov, with tears in her eyes, asked if she might arrange it for piano four hands.' Even so, seven years later, during a stay in Rome, Tchaikovsky reworked the symphony radically. As on previous discs, the symphony is combined with shorter, and often less well-known, works. The Overture to Ostrovsky's play The Storm - later used by Janacek for his Kata Kabanova - was written as a holiday assignment during Tchaikovsky's studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and earned him his teacher's disapproval for the extravagant, Berlioz-inspired scoring. The Overture in F was also a student work, which Tchaikovsky adapted for large orchestra when offered a welcome opportunity to have his work performed in Moscow. Just a couple of years later, he received a prestigious commission for a work to mark the wedding of the Tsarevich Alexander with the Danish Princess Dagmar. In the resulting Festive Overture he used motifs from the Danish and Russian national anthems, finally letting the Danish anthem resound in all its glory, in a splendid Maestoso. Even in later life Tchaikovsky regarded this piece highly, preferring it to the much more popular '1812' Overture. The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under its principal conductor emeritus Neeme Järvi gives all in this interesting programme.

Classical Music