Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
b. 1929. orchestra.
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra is a mid-tier recording ensemble frequently used for budget-label recordings (notably Naxos). Sample repertoire skews toward light British orchestral music (Ketelbey, German, Farnon, Duncan, Coates), suggesting nostalgic and uplifting character.
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Britten: Young Person's Guide; Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals; Prokofiev: Peter & The Wolf
The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns was prolific and lived a long time, although by the time of his death in 1921 music had changed beyond anything he could have conceived. He was a gifted pianist and, in common with many other well known French composers, found employment and distinction as organist at one of the principal churches in Paris. The popular Carnival of the Animals, described as A Zoological Fantasy, was written in 1886, originally for two pianos and a small chamber orchestra, to celebrate that year's carnival. The composer forbade further performances of this occasional music, except for The Swan, which enjoyed immediate and irresistible popularity.
The Soviet composer Sergey Prokofiev wrote his Peter and the Wolf in 1936 to introduce to children the instruments of the orchestra. He had taken his two sons to see performances at the Moscow Children's Music Theatre and this had suggested to him the possibility of a composition of this kind. The boy Peter, represented by the strings, is playing in the meadow, forbidden territory. A bird, shown by the flute, sings in a tree: a duck, the oboe, swims in the pond, and a cat, the clarinet, comes onto the scene, sending the bird up to a higher branch. Peter's grandfather, the bassoon, warns the boy not to venture out, but meanwhile a wolf, the French horns, comes into the meadow,
and adventures ensue with spoken narration.
Ten years later, in 1946, the English composer Benjamin Britten was asked to write music for an educational film introducing the instruments of the orchestra. For the purpose he chose a theme by the great 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and wrote a set of variations, each of which shows the characteristics of a particular instrument or group of instruments. The alternative title of the work, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, is an exact description. The other title, The Young Person's Guide to the
Orchestra, makes fun of the titles much favored by writers of moral tales in the 19th century, providing "young persons" with advice on how to regulate every aspect of their lives. At the most exciting part of the concluding fugue, the brass instruments play again the original theme, leading to a grand conclusion.
Moyzes: Dances from Gemer - Down the River Vah
Delibes: Coppélia, La Source / Mogrelia, Slovak Rso
Copland: Rodeo, Billy The Kid / Gunzenhauser, Slovak Radio Symphony
REVIEW:
The Bratislava orchestra play with such spontaneous enjoyment in Rodeo and Billy the Kid that one cannot help but respond. Gunzenhauser, a fine conductor of Czech music, is equally at home in Copland’s folksy, cowboy idiom and all this music has plenty of colour and atmosphere. If some of the detail in Appalachian Spring is less sharply etched than with Bernstein, the closing pages are tenderly responsive. The recording is admirably colourful and vivid, with a fine hall ambience, and the spectacle of the Fanfare for the Common Man is worth anybody’s money. A bargain.
-- Penguin Guide
Zemlinsky: Symphonies No 1 And 2 /Seipenbusch, Rajter, Et Al
Binge: Elizabethan Serenade - Scottish Rhapsody / Tomlinson, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ronald Binge was one of the most highly respected and successful English composers of his generation. He played a significant role in creating the Mantovani sound, but his big breakthrough came with the Elizabethan Serenade, which became an international hit. The evocative moods and memorable melodies of his best works saw their regular use as themes for TV and radio, and the soothing tones of Sailing By are still in use today as the close-down music for BBC Radio 4.
Glazunov: Seasons (The) / Scenes De Ballet
Bliss, A.: Christopher Columbus
The Complete National Anthems Of The World, Vol 3: 2013 Edition
Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals / Lenard
American Classics - Flagello: Symphony No 1, Etc / Amos
"David Amos is an old hand at producing effective performances of pieces that don't as yet have a performing tradition. Here he elicits inspired playing from the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. The recording is fine by current standards, and the liner notes by Fanfare's Walter Simmons are concise and informative. This is a wholly meritorious addition to Naxos's ongoing 'American Classics' series." -- William Zagorski, FANFARE
"Naxos's sound is couched in an ideal balance of spaciousness, presence, and detail, with climactic moments packing a startlingly gutsy wallop. The timing claimed on the cover is 10 minutes short of the actual disc duration: one is getting even greater value for very little money, and at Naxos's price it would amount to self-defeating, criminal neglect to pass this by." - Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE
The Complete National Anthems of the World 2019 / Breiner
While globalization advances, all countries staunchly retain two unique features: their distinctive national flag and a bonding national anthem. The anthems reflect an enormous indigenous diversity, but relatively few are generally known by citizens of other nations, making any comprehensive compendium a source of endless interest and discovery. We invite you to take a musical tour of Naxos’ definitive set of national and regional anthems, from Algeria to Kuwait. Lapland to Zanzibar, and all stops in between. You’ll be delighted by the gems that are waiting to be discovered and compiled into either personal or family favorites. And you can check out the flags in the process with our informative supporting booklets! Welcome to the Naxos set of The Complete National Anthems of the World.
Moyzes: Symphonies No 3 & 4 / Slovak, Slovak Radio So
The Third or "Little" Symphony of 1942 is one of the composer's shortest and least problematical, and thus an excellent point of entry into his musical world. It is adapted from an earlier wind quintet, and its atypical five-movement format projects an easygoing and celebratory character. Though it opens with a near-Beethovenian motto-motif, which recurs in the finale and thus helps the piece from lapsing into a species of symphonic suite, the symphony quickly springs into an essentially joyous and eventful kind of momentum. With its relatively compact movements—a Larghetto Variazioni, Presto Scherzo, and Largamente Intermezzo framed by two highly charged Allegros— the work is suffused with Moyzes's very personal but also universalized distillation of the Slovak folk spirit.
The Fourth Symphony, however—initially written during the dark days of World War II and extensively revised in 1952—is a very different kind of piece. Scored for a large orchestra and running 40 minutes, it is among the longest and most elevated of Moyzes's 12. Utilizing once again an integrative motto-theme, it is usually interpreted as both a protest against war and a healing evocation of the Slovak past and countryside. The 16-minute opening Andante con moto sets the tone for the whole work: one of expansive breadth and slowly unfolding narrative where the heroic and epic strains generate a high level of majesty and grandiloquence. These moods carry over through the quasi-Impressionist textures of the Adagio (in which a brief scherzo flare-up is embedded) and reach fulfillment in the guardedly affirmative Allegro moderato finale. Although the annotator speaks of stylistic parallels with Sibelius and Mahler, to these ears the idiom remains tenaciously Slovak in sonority and personality.
The veteran conductor Ladislav Slovak has been identified with the Fourth Symphony over many years, having recorded an analog version in the early 1960s. That earlier performance was perhaps somewhat tighter and more forceful than this more relaxed approach of three decades later. Nonetheless, this is a most sympathetic reading that succeeds in melding Moyzes's tendencies toward the rhetorical and the episodic into a satisfyingly coherent whole.
Another illuminating installment in the reconstruction of the mosaic of 20th-century Czech music, and an essential purchase for those whose interest focuses on the modern symphony.
-- Paul A. Snook, FANFARE [7/2001]
The Bergman Suites: Classic Film Music of Eric Nordgren
• This is a reissue of a Marco Polo disc, 8.223682.
• On its original appearance Gramophone wrote “Performances and recording are among the best in this interesting series”.
A Musical Journey - Germany & Italy: A Musical Visit to Bava
Khachaturian: Othello Suite, Battle of Stalingrad Suite / Adriano
Khachaturian, like many another composer, major and lesser, in Soviet Russia, turned his hand to the cinema and did so pretty extensively. This was a great leveller, a ready source of income and a means of reaching out to mass audiences across the Union. The pity is that we see so few of those films. If we think at all about them we much more readily accept seeing them written off as the work of political hacks. The composer’s first effort – of eighteen - was the film Pepo written for the Armenian Film Board a few years before his First Symphony (1934). His last film dated from 1960.
Here are suites assembled from the music for two of Khachaturian’s cinema scores. They are played for all they are worth. Adherents of this composer and of twentieth century music of the USSR will want to hear how he fared in dealing with the silver screen.
The Battle of Stalingrad original score ran to some two hours. The titles give us some impression of what is featured in this suite: I. A City on the Volga - II. The Invasion; IIIa. Stalingrad in Flames; IIIb. The Enemy is doomed; IV. For our Motherland; To the Attack! - Eternal Glory to the Heroes; V. To Victory - VI. There is a Cliff on the Volga. Much of this is urgent and not specially subtle – then again this is not meant to be about subtlety. The music often has a furious seething energy typical of the militaristic bravado found in the music for the Roman legionaries in Spartacus. We also hear little half-echoes of The Great Gate of Kiev. There are some glowing interludes such as that to be found in the almost Bridge-like battlefield bleakness of tr. 3 and at the close of tr. 4 (Eternal Glory to the Heroes). There are also moments that seem to evoke the composer’s great ballets – especially Spartacus. The cheery brassy march that is To Victory is noticeably purged of the ferocity to be found in the turbulent flag-waving first movement. This could almost be a march by Arthur Bliss. There’s a brass band version of the suite on Lawo which Nick Barnard did not think much of.
Both Chandos and Capriccio have done extensive series of the film music of Shostakovich. No such thorough efforts have gone in Khachaturian’s direction. There has been this single disc from Naxos and some film suites from ASV. Indeed fifteen minutes of Loris Tjeknavorian’s take on The Battle of Stalingrad was issued on Alto. It was originally issued with the Second Symphony.
If the Stalingrad score’s gaudy virtues are embraced, often at the expense of the more understated and nuanced, Othello from 1955 is much more multi-faceted. This is as befits a presumably fairly classy Shakespeare film in a translation made by Boris Pasternak – he of Doctor Zhivago fame. The Prologue and Intermezzo is especially touching with a memorable tolling solo violin which returns in the finale. There’s also some extremely inventive writing in a mode recalling Prokofiev who had died two years before this film. The Desdemona Arioso is a swellingly emotional vocalise for soprano with orchestra with more than few links with the famous Adagio from Spartacus. The little Venice Nocturne (tr.4) is a lovely miniature, showing as does much of this score, that Khachaturian is much more than a peddler of crushingly loud music. The grey psychological aspects of Nocturnal Murder make way for the intensity of Othello’s Despair. The urgently rushing A Fit of Jealousy will have you thinking of the ruthlessly athletic music for Crassus in Spartacus. If Khachaturian indulges in a Hollywood-style choir in the Finale – well, why not, and it is by no means cheesy.
The recording is extremely good despite its 25 year vintage. The notes by the conductor are helpful in placing the score and the films from which this music is drawn.
I hope that at some time, in a world where there are seemingly hundreds of film channels, we will get to see these films.
There you have it: specialist territory maybe but two very welcome substantial suites from the world of Khachaturian’s film music.
– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Adam: Giselle - Highlights / Mogrelia, Slovak Radio Symphony
ADAM Giselle • Pavel Klinichev, cond; Svetlana Lunkina ( Giselle ); Dmitry Gudanov ( Albrecht ); Maria Allash ( Myrtha ); Vitaly Biktimirov ( Hans ); Elena Bukanova ( Berthe ); Ekaterina Barykina ( Bathilde ); Alexey Loparevich ( Duke ); Vladislav Lantratov ( Wilfreed ); Chinara Alizade, Andrey Bolotin ( Peasants ); Bolshoi Ballet & O • BELAIR BAC074 (109: 00) Live: Moscow 01/2011
ADAM Giselle: highlights • Andrew Mogrelia, cond; Slovak RSO • NAXOS 8.572924 (61:07)
Giselle is one of the ballet characters that dancers relish, emblematic of the Romantic era, complete with mad scene yet requiring dancing of great purity for the second act. Svetlana Lunkina is one of the new crop of Bolshoi ballerinas equally at home in bravura roles at the same time as being a convincing Giselle or Sylphide. Dmitry Gudanov is a convincing hero, his youthful looks helping to define his character as an innocent, totally unaware of the chaos he has created. Maria Allash possesses the same romantic qualities as Lunkina, allied with a stern demeanor that makes her Myrtha a very steely character. Chinara Alizade and Andrey Bolotin dance the interpolated Peasant Pas de Deux with the requisite charm, while Vitaly Biktimirov’s lovelorn Hans (aka Hilarion) almost arouses our compassion. Pavel Klinichev and the Bolshoi Orchestra offer a straightforward reading. The credit “choreographic version by Yuri Grigorovich after choreography by Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot & Marius Petipa” is puzzling as this appears to be a standard version, other than a hastily choreographed court dance the first time the Duke and his followers arrive. Grigorovich’s only other contribution would appear to be some of the bizarre rhythmic accentuations that he favors.
The CD of orchestral highlights is well-enough performed by Andrew Mogrelia and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, of particular interest for the music with hunting fanfares that are rarely heard at the start of act II before Myrtha’s entrance. But some of the tempi are unsuitable for the theater and may even jar listeners familiar with the work.
FANFARE: Joel Kasow
Film Music Classics - Honegger: Les Misérables
A Musical Journey: France - A Visit To Provence
The Places
The places visited include Arles, with its Roman arena, the mill made famous by Alphonse Daudet in his Lettres de mon moulin and the celebrations of the guardians of the Camargue, with its wild horses. Accompanying the Zoological Fantasy of Saint Saëns are scenes from zoos, the nature reserve at Sigean, near Narbonne, and the Swiss children’s zoo at Rapperswil.
The Music
The music is taken from the orchestral suites derived by Georges Bizet from his music for Alphonse Daudet’s melodrama L’Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles), the story of the vain love and suicide of a young relative of the Provençal poet Mistral. Camille Saint-Saëns composed his Carnival of the Animals to entertain his friends. The procession of animals ranges from lions to fish, pianists, critics and fossils.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 60 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
A Musical Journey - France: From Marseille to Cannes
A Musical Journey: Paris - Music By Beethoven
Christmas Goes Baroque - A Musical Tour of Switzerland, Germany & Belgium
Might as well get my grumble out of my system at the start, particularly as I enjoyed much of the photography, most of the locations and all the musical arrangements. It is just that the title could be deemed misleading as only two Chapters of the thirteen are not of Switzerland and two of the remaining eleven are not focused on Zurich. No problem though about the preponderance of Zurich.
Switzerland has existed as the world’s oldest democracy for some seven hundred years. It is the most linguistically and culturally diverse western European nation. Its diversity derives from its history; having experienced internal religious conflict, the Congress of Vienna guaranteed independence and neutrality in 1815. A new federal state of Cantons was formed in 1848 with Bern as the capital. The Cantons reflect cultural and linguistic variety. With borders with France, Germany and Italy these are the appropriate languages of the population who usually speak at least two along with English. The Romantsch dialect is also spoken by about one percent of its people. Zurich is the largest city, located at the north-western end of Lake Zurich, and has long been the industrial and banking centre of the country as well as a magnet for tourism. Its history includes being a centre of Protestantism.
It is on Zurich that the opening Chapters focus with views of the city streets at night dressed in resplendent Christmas decorations (CH.1). In the daylight, dusted in snow with a misty hue, the city looks less inviting albeit the bridge over the river Lammat and the mighty twin towers of the Cathedral are imposing (CH.2). The tradition of Christmas is central in December and the film visits the mechanical Father Christmas, a wonderful Christmas crib and the various toyshops with captivated children peering through the windows (CHs. 3-5). The great Minster, in all its internal magnificence appears to the melody of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen played in a baroque manner (CH.6). After brief visits to the Toy Museum in Nuremberg, a city well known as the centre of the German toy-making industry (CH.8), it’s back to Zurich to one of their leading toy emporia with a final visit to a window display of model trains zipping around snowy mountain scenery and model houses; captivating for the children, and, I do not doubt, their parents (CH.13). In between these last two visits, filming takes in a Brussels restaurant where seafood, not just moules and frites, is being prepared and where one can lust over the chocolates, not all Pralines (CH.10). Swiss winter landscapes (CH.12) and the Einsieden Monastery, an important centre of Catholic pilgrimage, are further diversions from Zurich. The monastery church is largely baroque in form (CH.11). The other interesting church visited is that at Engadine, a Romantsch-speaking district set in mountains and popular with visitors (CH.7). Both religious buildings have interesting frescoes and murals.
Each visit throughout this tour is accompanied by Baroque-type arrangements of mainly well-known Christmas music. Those chosen include Good King Wenceslas, The First Nowell, Jingle Bells, Silent Night and We Wish You A merry Christmas. With the arrangements being based on Baroque practice, brass is prominent but not overdone. Once or twice, as with O Tannenbaum (CH.12) the arrangement loses the underlying melody, for me at least.
-- Robert J Farr, MusicWeb International
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Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0 / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 54 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Ibert: Orchestral Works
A Musical Journey - Spain: A Musical Visit to Madrid, La Man
A Musical Journey - Norway
The Places
The legendary Norwegian figure Peer Gynt is widely known through Henrik Ibsen’s play that follows Peer’s unscrupulous adventures, a work that enjoys still further fame through the incidental music written for it by Edvard Grieg. Parts of the Norwegian countryside are identified with some of Peer Gynt’s adventures.
The Music
Greig collaborated with the greatest of Norwegian dramatists, Henrik Ibsen, in his music for the play Peer Gynt, from which he drew two orchestral suites. Grieg also worked with Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, providing incidental music for the historical play Sigurd Jorsalfar.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 54 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
Moyzes: Symphonies 7 & 8 / Slovak, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Moyzes’ symphonic cycle is the best-known by a Slovak composer. His synthesis of Slovak influences and contemporary trends in European music informs every strand of his compositions. The Symphony No. 7, Op. 50 is his largest and most powerful orchestral statement, which he dedicated to the memory of his young daughter. Peasant scenes, folk dances and exceptional lyric beauty form the bedrock of a passionate and dramatic work. Written as a response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Symphony No. 8 ’21.08.1968,’ Op. 64 is a brooding lament that shares affinities with Shostakovich’s symphonic writing. This album is volume 3 in a series of reissues from the Marco Polo label. These releases remain as the only easily accessible reference, and with recordings and performances that still sound fresh and invigorating, we felt it was time for a revival. Of the original release, International Record Review wrote: “the Seventh Symphony… opens, in a beautiful albeggiante pastorale- quite the loveliest thing I’ve heard from Moyzes- which leads into a jolly, even rumbustious, folk dance. Ladislav Slovak, who died in 1999, does Moyzes as proud in these two releases as in the previous recordings in the cycle: reliable playing, good sound.”
Moyzes: Symphonies Nos. 9 & 10 / Slovak, Slovak Radio Symphony
Alexander Moyzes is considered one of the leading composers of his generation, his style skillfully fusing inspiration from both his Slovakian heritage and contemporary European trends. The premiere of his Ninth Symphony took place in 1971, only three years after the Soviet-led invasion of his homeland, and the work’s dark and dramatic atmosphere depicts the tragedy and hopelessness of this period. By contrast, the serene colors of the Tenth Symphony avoid political connotations, and the piece is stylistically typical of the composer’s last decade in its technical virtuosity, formal elegance and brilliant artistic design. The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra was established in 1929 as the first professional symphony orchestra in Slovakia. The orchestra is currently led by conductor Mario Kosik.
Ginastera: Piano Concertos No 1 And 2 / De Marinis, Et Al
British Light Music - Ronald Binge / Ernest Tomlinson
A Musical Journey: Norway, Finland
The Places
Scenes of Finland and its capital Helsinki, the interlinked islands of Suomenlinna, site of an ancient castle and fortifications, and the hills, valleys and fjords of Norway follow a journey through varied Nordic landscapes.
The Music
Finland found its musical identity largely through the work of Jean Sibelius, whose Violin Concerto is the principal work included here. Other works are by the Norwegian composers Johan Svendsen, Johan Halvorsen and Christian Sinding.
Picture format: NTSC 4:3
Sound format: PCM Stereo 2.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 59 mins
No. of DVDs: 1
