"The ''refreshing lyrical innocence'' which EG complained was missing at the opening of the Bernstein CBS performance is certainly caught by Slatkin who secures excellent, responsive playing from the St Louis orchestra. The reading is direct, not without its volatile moments, but essentially more conventional, less imaginative than Bernstein's. As EG noted, Bernstein is marvellously persuasive in holding concentration, building tense climaxes. The climax of the slow movement on the RCA disc is aided by the wide dynamic range and sense of spectacle of the splendid recording, but Bernstein creates much greater tension in the playing itself, as is immediately noticeable in the sense of ecstasy in the upper things soon after the movement's opening and in the closing section where the affinity with Romeo and Juliet is strong. similarly in the lyrically flowing string theme of the middle part of the Scherzo the rhythmic feeling is quirkier with Bernstein to match the bluff humuor of his finale.

Comparisons with the Karajan and Previn versions are pointless in the present context as neither is scheduled for Cd issue at present. The plus point for the RCA issue is the unaffected commitment of the over-all conception, with the finale engagingly high spirited to draw a parallel with the Classical Symphony alongside the famous ballet. The RCA recording too is first rate, naturally balanced within a convincing concert hall ambience. I did not find the weighty bass on the CBS compact Disc so oppressive as EG and certainly the Israel quality does not lack body and sharpness of focus, but detail is less natural and there is a touch of microphone-coloured glossiness on the violins..."

-- Ivan March, Gramophone [4/1985]

Much heralded as the auspicious beginning of a new--and now defunct--recording contract with RCA, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony's Romeo & Juliet remains a stunningly good Prokofiev disc. This particular arrangement (compiled by the conductor) follows the sequence of the ballet, providing more narrative continuity than Prokofiev's three suites. Thomas' vibrant and insightful conducting, employing some highly effective and idiosyncratic rubato in many passages, powerfully enhances the drama's ebb and flow. The Balcony scene fairly flows with passion, while light and breezy pacing enlivens the Folk Dance and the Young Juliet. The intense drive of Romeo's Revenge (augmented by bass drum and tambourine at the climax) also rivets the attention.

Underlying all of this is the exceptionally high-caliber playing of the San Francisco Symphony, with its bracing energy, virtuosity, and rhythmic vitality. RCA's warmly spacious, wide-dynamic recording makes a powerful impression (even if it cannot match Telarc's recent SACD version for spatial realism). Considering that Thomas' arrangement contains virtually all the main thematic material from the ballet (minus Prokofiev's many repetitions), for many listeners this hugely enjoyable disc will be the one Romeo & Juliet to have and hold. [6/10/2004]

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet Ballet (Excerpts) & Lieutenant K

The Graffman/Szell recordings of Prokofiev's First and Third Piano Concertos gained "classic" status almost from their original release, and they still hold up very well. While the First Concerto may not have quite the glittering edge that Martha Argerich brings to it, there is certainly no want of virtuosity on Graffman's part, and it practically goes without saying that Szell and Cleveland are terrific. They are particularly wonderful in the Third Concerto's central variations, whose dry wit seems tailor-made for these performers. The two sonatas are equally impressive, with Graffman's unfailingly intelligent shaping of the Second Sonata's big opening movement and his romp through the single-movement Third Sonata obstinately memorable. The sonics have dated a bit in the four decades since original release, but hardly so as to distract from the interpretive excellence on hand, with the DSD remastering very sensitively accomplished.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Nikolai Madojan who is turning 21 this year is no new comer to the world’s major concert scenes since his sensational debut with the Kirov Orchestra at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival in 1989, when he was only 16. Nikolai, in spite of his youth, is a dazzling virtuoso on the stage and the critics do not shy away from giving him superlative praises like “the driving force of the concert...”, “masterly interpretation..”, “a performance of genius!”, etc. This is Nikolai’s debut CD for which he chose the works by Prokofiev not only to showcase his performance skills and profound interpretation but also to express his personal background as an Armenian born youth who had to witness his home land falling apart in turmoil. Nikolai Madojan lives now in Lübeck, Germany with his family.

Winner of numerous international cello competitions Michaela Fukacova has established herself in the forefront of world’s elite cellists. Here on her fifth CD on Kontrapunkt, Michaela together with Czech’s leading pianist Ivan Klansky interprets Russian masterpieces for cello. On her London concert, The Times wrote, “...she displayed her full impassioned tone and eloquent musicianship.

Cello Sonatas, Klingende Buchs

...[I]n such a spirited reading [as this performance of the Prokofiev First] the parallels between the Prokofiev and the Bizet [Symphony in C] are very much highlighted: the 'classical' symphonies of Prokofiev's title—those, presumably, of Haydn and Mozart — seem comparatively remote. But for all their brilliance elsewhere the players manage to be sinuously winning enough in the Symphony's slow movement... [a performance] of the very first class.

-- Gramophone [5/1969, reviewing an LP release of the First Symphony]

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Bernstein gives a highly romantic version of the first movement... [I]t could hardly be better done... The playing throughout the whole symphony is in the highest class and the recording is of the same quality.

-- Gramophone [10/1967, reviewing the original LP release of the Fifth Symphony]

Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf - Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of

Classical Music

PROKOFIEV Piano Sonatas: Nos. 1–5 • Alexandra Silocea (pn) • AVIE 2183 (65:16)


As with Beethoven, one can with the revisions he made to the Fifth Sonata follow Prokofiev’s development almost from the beginning of his career to the end of it. Though a handful of the nine sonatas became popular with audiences and performers right from the beginning, others fell into the cracks of history shortly after their inception. Many of these sonatas became popular not only with Soviet pianists of the era, but musicians worldwide—Richter, Gilels, Horowitz, Gould, Cliburn, Argerich, François, to name just a few. In choosing to record the complete sonatas for her debut recording (of which the present release is just the first volume), Alexandra Silocea pits herself against some of the greatest pianists of the last century. Even in considering just the lesser-known sonatas, she has stiff competition from both Frederic Chiu and Anne-Marie McDermott, who have both recorded excellent complete cycles of these works. So the question remains, how does this young pianist, now in her mid-20s, fare? Remarkably well, actually. She possesses both the maturity to handle the subtleties of this music along with the requisite mechanical skill to handle the technical hurdles that Prokofiev throws at the pianist. She might not have the kind of fiery temperament that Gilels and Weissenberg bring to the Third Sonata’s climaxes, but the assured way she handles the dramatic alternation from the percussive opening to the more lyrical semplice e dolce theme is masterly. Her quirky way with the Second Sonata’s scherzo movement can stand at the top of the list for great performances, while her romantic yet never over-sentimentalized way with the First Sonata’s obvious debt to Rachmaninoff imbues the movement with a sound all of its own—one that Prokofiev was soon to abandon. Will this perhaps lead to the First Sonata being performed more in public? One can only hope so. Her ghostly, almost pale sound is equally perfect for the Più mosso section of the Second Sonata’s first movement. Silocea may possess a thin sound in general, but she has a beautiful one in regards to her melodic line, and has the ability to maintain a long line over a large span of time. Her crescendos and diminuendos always lend the pieces a feeling of momentum, which is especially important in these often forward-propelled movements. How will Silocea fare in the later sonatas? Only time will tell. But if she can manage to bring the same technical assuredness and musical sensibilities to these works, then we could be looking at not only an auspicious debut, but a very fine overall cycle of Prokofiev’s sonatas. I for one am looking forward to the second installment—in other words, highly recommended.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

For me the main attraction in this fascinating batch of discs is the magnificent Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution. It is here presented in its unbowdlerised version including Stalin's speeches towards the end. Kondrashin was forced to elide them in his first recording. However let's not confuse politics with musical worth troubling though the process of separating one from the other in a cantata of this type may be. The forces used are massive and they are used to huge effect. Loudness and awe are not of course enough. In fact this music has a dizzying concentration that is bound to impress and some poetry too.

The performance history of the piece is fascinating. Completed in 1937, it was buried by the denunciations of that era until 1966 when it was performed and then recorded -against the conductor's wishes - minus two crucial substantial episodes which set words by Stalin. This Chandos recording which is complete, faithful to the original schema as to instrumentation and has all sections as written was performed in this form for the first time anywhere outside Eastern Europe by Järvi at the RFH in 1992.

The choir is large and subdivided into two section - eight parts. There is a super-augmented orchestra with quadruple woodwind and eight horns alongside three augmentary instrumental groups: six accordions or bayans, a seventeen strong windband including six further trumpets to add to the four already in the orchestra and a percussion ensemble with alarm bells, cannon-shot, sirens (9:22 in Revolution tr. 6) and the kitchen sink. In the wild fervent rumpus that is Revolution the voice of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky rings out through a megaphone orating the words of Lenin. One can somehow see the smoke of insurrection, feel its sting, the howls of heightened awareness and hysteria and the bloody fervour of the words. This is the same movement in which the Bayan band appear. The bayans return for The Oath: Stalin's pledge in his speech at Lenin's bierside. It too burns with conviction - faithful to the original sentiments of the extension of the Communist International into a spreading worldwide alliance. It is greatly to the credit of the Philharmonia chorus and Simon Halsey that the flame burns bright, steady and intense. The final and tenth movement, The Constitution, again sets Stalin's words

There are no soloists except for Rozhdestvensky and his spoken cameo - the voice of the people speaking the words of their hortators into the dazzling sun. Overdose on grandiloquence and blazing fervour. In case you think this is all unremitting grandstanding the quietly intimate silvery sheen of the strings in Victory shines forth.

The notes are by Christopher Palmer and all the words are there in the booklet: transliterated Russian alongside French, German and English translations.

When this disc was first released in 1992 while not impossible to track down full recordings of Prokofiev's third Soviet ballet The Tale of the Stone Flower were difficult to come by. CPO and Chandos have put that right in style since. Even so there is a place for this twenty-five minute sequence from Prokofiev's full-length ballet: whooping brass, gypsy flavour, echoes of Romeo and Juliet (how could he escape it), dark clouded tension, shrieking tangy woodwind, the swayingly touching solo of the gypsy girl (tr.17) and stamping, crashing fury.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

PROKOFIEV String Quartets: No. 1 in b; No. 2 in F. Visions fugitives (arr. S. Samsonov) • Energie Nove Qrt • DYNAMIC 726 (69:31)


The Italian label Dynamic seems to be re-energizing itself (pun intended) with a roster of new and unfamiliar artists. First it was a recording of Bach’s French Suites with a harpsichordist new to Fanfare , Alessandra Artifoni, reviewed elsewhere in this issue; and now we have a similarly unfamiliar string quartet ensemble billing itself Quartetto Energie Nove, which, like Artifoni, has neither an official website nor any other recordings I could find. The ensemble’s rep agency, Suavis Artists, does however, have a bio-blurb about the group, and I stumbled upon a YouTube entry of a complete performance by the ensemble of Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet, op. 74, which sounds very promising. Energie Nove’s makeup is international—Russian, German, and Italian—but all four musicians play on neutral territory, being members of Switzerland’s Orchestra della Svizzera Italiano. Familiar names, such as Salvatore Accardo, Tibor Varga, Franco Gulli, and Valentin Berlinsky (long-time cellist of the Borodin Quartet), figure prominently in Energie Nove’s training.


To repeat what I’ve said many times before, we are blessed to be living in a golden age of string playing, and the Quartetto Energie Nove is but yet another manifestation of our blessings. Most performances of Prokofiev’s First String Quartet start off with an appropriately jaunty stride of cockeyed optimism. But Energie Nove’s players spring forth, jack-in-the-box like, with a mischievous alacrity. Their first movement timing, 6:39, leaves the St. Petersburg Quartet (on Delos), at 7:43, in the dust. They’re even faster than the Emerson Quartet at 7:05 and the Chilingrian Quartet (on Chandos) at 7: 01.


In the Andante , the timings are reversed, with Energie Nove being slightly slower and more probing than any of the above-cited three versions, while in the last movement—the one Prokofiev himself arranged for string orchestra—Energie Nove’s timing is very close to the others, but its playing is sharper edged. The effect, to recall the previous pun, is to energize the music in a way I’ve not heard it played before. Admittedly, I’ve not heard the recent version by the Pavel Haas Quartet on Supraphon, which was very highly rated by Boyd Pomeroy in 33:6 and Want Listed by Bart Verhaeghe in 34:2.


Prokofiev was close to 40 when he wrote his first of only two string quartets in 1930. The work was commissioned by the Library of Congress, where it was first performed the following year. The composer’s Second Quartet, in F Major, was written a decade later and under very different circumstances. By 1941, Prokofiev was back in Moscow, but not for long. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, he, along with several other artists the government deemed “high value” assets, was whisked away to the safety of Nalchik, a town some 900 miles south of Moscow. It was here that the composer was asked (ordered, would be more accurate) to write a string quartet based on the Karbadino-Balkar folk tunes and rhythms of the indigenous tribal peoples of this North Caucasus region.


One would think that having to produce a work on-demand like that would not motivate a composer to his best efforts, but Prokofiev became quite intrigued by the native folk music he’d been directed to incorporate into his new quartet, and he ended up composing a very attractive and, in some ways, more emotionally stirring score than that of his First Quartet. Again, Energie Nove plays with consummate technical authority and real feeling for the music’s folk idioms.


Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives , 20 short pieces the composer wrote for piano between 1915 and 1917, performed here in an arrangement for string quartet by Sergei Samsonov, is perhaps a bit of an odd choice as a complement to the two string quartets, but the sad fact (our loss) is that Prokofiev didn’t really compose much chamber music. These two string quartets, a Quintet for mixed winds and strings, a couple of sonatas for violin and piano, a Sonata for cello and piano, a Sonata for two violins, and a Sextet, better known as Overture on Hebrew Themes , are about the extent of it, unless one counts a few miscellaneous pieces for violin and piano and for cello and piano. Though the Visions fugitives string quartet arrangement is not in Prokofiev’s hand, it makes more sense to me as a disc filler than does the Emerson Quartet’s choice of the two-violin sonata—the identical program offered by the Pavel Haas Quartet—or the St. Petersburg Quartet’s choice of a not very appealing 1985 string quartet by Georgian composer Zurab Nadarejshvili. And Energie Nove’s choice is certainly preferable to the Chilingrian Quartet’s filler on Chandos, which is nothing, a 43-minute disc I’m now retiring from my collection.


I’m hoping to hear a lot more from Quartetto Energie Nove in the future. Meanwhile, this new Prokofiev offering is strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

Prokofiev’s great ballet scores for Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella have become firm favourites in both the concert hall and the repertory of ballet companies worldwide – ‘The Montagues and Capulets’ from Romeo and Juliet, for example, features regularly at major sporting events, something Prokofiev probably never envisaged!

The earliest of the ballets featured here is Romeo and Juliet, commissioned in the mid-1930s, soon after Prokofiev returned to the USSR from self-imposed exile. Drawn from the main events of the ballet, the music of Suite No.2 ranges from the grand, formal music of the ball and sounds of a popular holiday to the tragedy and despair of the story’s end, illuminating Prokofiev’s commitment to communicating the depths and intricacies of Shakespeare’s play.

Cinderella followed Romeo and Juliet in the 1940s, with a score of rich and sophisticated music that rewards audiences of adults and children alike.The Suite No.1 features some of the ballet’s best-loved music, including ‘Cinderella’s Waltz’ and the brilliant Mazurka.The Stone Flower was the last of Prokofiev’s Soviet ballets, dating from 1948, and is based on a folk tale from the Urals. Although it will perhaps be the least familiar of the works on this disc, its score contains music of great beauty, with soaring tunes that are as memorable as anything in the two ballet scores that preceded it.

OTHER INFORMATION:
• Recording made in 1997.
• Includes booklet notes.

This disc includes both ADD and DDD recordings.

Classical Music

Prokofiev: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2

Prokofiev: Piano Concertos Nos. 2, 4 & Overture on Hebrew Th

Bernstein's charisma is effectively demonstrated in a collection of Russian music... [P]redictably energetic...are Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture and Glière's Russian Sailors' Dance from The Red Poppy... But the highlights are lyrical, with Bernstein suitably atmospheric in a fine account of Borodin's In the steppes of Central Asia and giving a coolly poised reading of the beautiful Prelude to Khovantschina of Mussorgsky (with glowing orchestration from Rimsky-Korsakov).

-- Gramophone [7/1985]

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...Prokofiev's Scythian Suite, which [Bernstein] does well; I have not heard all the other available recordings but I should imagine that none surpasses this one in brilliance of colour, excitement and virtuosity.


-- Gramophone [10/1969, reviewing the original LP release of the Scythian Suite]

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These very popular examples of colourful Russian music are very well played and recorded in a style to emphasise brightness, thus enabling us to hear clearly some of the inner parts that are sometimes obscured.


-- Gramophone [12/1967, reviewing the original LP release of the Glinka, Mussorgsky, and Ippolitov-Ivanov works]

Although there have been many fine and some thrilling performances of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony since it first appeared on record, there are only two that really count—and this is one of them. The other is the perfectly proportioned and beautifully played Karajan (DG, 1/93). Of course, there are many more modern and better recorded versions that can be recommended but (to put an unwelcome scenario) were the bomb about to drop, and one had only time to play one version of the Fifth, for me it would be this one. Unaccountably it was never released in this country on 78s after the war, although numbers in HMV's DB series were allotted to it. In those days duplication was the exception rather than the rule and this symphony had not established the popular following it now enjoys. Perhaps it was felt that its release would impair the success of the now deleted rival set with Artur Rodzinski and the New York Philharmonic (Columbia, 2/49).

When the work was first issued on LP, I wrote: ''Not even the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan can match the strings of the Boston Symphony in sheer power and eloquence under the baton of Koussevitzky. They possess a lyrical intensity matched by few others. Above the stave they sing with unerring purity of intonation: the sound is marvellously clean and their tone can only be called luminous.'' (Writing in another context Harris Goldsmith declared, ''the voluminous warmth of the Boston string section under Koussevitzky was one of the hedonistic delights of Western civilization''.) The wind and brass are of comparable excellence. This account dates from February 6th and 7th, 1946, yet the musicians sound as if they have known this music all their lives. As they do in an earlier performance I have on AS Disc (not available in the UK) from November 17th,1945, which must have been made very near the work's premiere.

To the Fifth Symphony and the four Romeo and Juliet excerpts (which were coupled on the LP) RCA have added two performances recorded during the orchestra's visit to New York in November 1947: the Classical Symphony and the ''Danse finale'' from Chout. I don't think the Classical is superior to the marvellous account on 78s recorded by Koussevitzky in the early 1930s (HMV, 10/31) which I hope will reappear in due course, but it is still both vivacious and enchanting. As I wrote of the Fifth and the four Romeo and Juliet excerpts first time round, these interpretations are totally unmannered yet of outsize personality, their virtuosity worn lightly. Superb performances, then, in a class of their own, which produce even better results now than they did on vinyl.'

Robert Layton, The Gramophone

PROKOFIEV: PIANO SONATAS NOS 2

Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

This first ever digital recording of Prokofiev's music for the ballet 'The Stone Flower' is released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. the story is an amalgamation of several of the folk-style tales in a book by the ural writer Paval Bazhov, cast in a Prologue, four acts and eight scenes which range from village and fairground to mountain caverns. 'The Tale of the Stone Flower' is Prokofiev's last ballet, and he never lived to see it performed. This is Chandos' first recording with Gianandrea Noseda, the new Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. His work with the orchestra has been greeted with tremendous enthusiasm. Recorded in: New Broadcasting House, Manchester 21, 22, 24 & 28 January 2003 Producer(s) Brian Pidgeon (Executive) Mike George (Recording) Sound Engineer(s) Stephen Rinker Denise Else (Assistant) Nick Bell (Assistant)

His passing most unfortunately coming on the same day as the dreaded Stalin's, Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), most fortunately, left to posterity a far better, less lethal legacy. His music, often marked rhythmically and instrumentally by the violence and war which surrounded him after his return to the Soviet Union, is all the more dramatic as a result. Few could capture that drama as well as his countryman Sviatoslav Richter, a pianist seemingly born to play his music. These 1956-8 Moscow recordings of the Sonatas Nos. 6, 7 & 9, capture Mr. Richter at the height of his interpretative powers.