Following successes with the Firebird (Naxos 8571221) and Petrushka (Naxos 8571222) Stravinsky's ballet the Rite of Spring was the most ambitious and controversial result of his collaboration with Sergey Dyagilev's Ballet ruses the premiere performance in 1913 leading to a riot in the theatre. The Rite of Spring portrays atmospheric and dramatic pagan rituals which culminate in a sacrificial dance during which the Chosen One dances herself to death. The Dumbarton Oaks concerto represents Stravinsky's later neoclassical style referring to Bach in it's compact scale and transparency of language.

Haenssler CLASSIC's Ballets Russes series is unrivaled for completeness and will include many works never before recorded. Each booklet includes historic details of the works performance and artwork from the original productions. World-renowned choreographer John Neumeier has overseen the production of the entire series. For 20 years from 1909 to 1929, the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev and his Russian ballet became one of the 20th century's most incredible artistic adventures, redefining theater, music and dance in every performance.

Piano Classics presents a full-blooded Russian program played by Alexander Ghindin, one of the foremost pianists in Russia today. Ghindin has been a winner in several international competitions including the Queen Elizabeth (2nd prize) and Cleveland Piano Competition (1st prize). Currently, he plays all over the world with distinguished orchestras and conductors. This recital includes Stravinsky's burlesque of the tragic puppet Petrouchka, a display of dazzling virtuosity and imagination, Rachmaninov's passionate and wistful Morceaux de fantaisie and the grand scope and bravura of Tchaikovsky's Piano Sonata.

RUSSIAN STRING QUARTETS • Leipzig Str Qrt • MDG 307 1758-2 (76:56)


AFANASIEV String Quartet, “Volga.” RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Chorale and Variations. Fugue, “In the Monastery.” RACHMANINOFF Romanze and Scherzo. BORODIN String Quartet No. 2


This release couples three little-known works with one of the most familiar (and best) chamber works to emerge from 19th century Russia. In one case, the composer also is very obscure, although he enjoyed a long career and had some success during his lifetime. Nikolai Iakovlevich Afanasiev (1821-1898) received musical training from his violinist father but had no formal training in composition, none being available in Russia at the time. He performed as a violinist and conductor, including a stint as concert master of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. He is said to have written 12 string quartets, as well as symphonies, concertos, and several operas, including one based on the same Gogol story set by Tchaikovsky in Cherevichki and Rimsky-Korsakov in Christmas Eve , but much of his music remains unpublished. His “Volga” String Quartet was one of his most successful works, receiving a prize from the Russian Musical Society in 1860. Its use of Russian folk material guarantees a substantial level of melodic interest, but the attempts at thematic development seem tentative. The most pleasing of its four movements is unfortunately the shortest, the Allegretto second movement, where engaging melody combines with lively, dance-like rhythm and the simple tripartite form doesn’t tax the composer’s technical abilities. In that movement there is a motif that is curiously similar to the one associated with the witch Ježibaba in Dvo?ák’s Rusalka , written 40 years later. Another melody strongly suggestive of Dvo?ák occurs in the final movement.


As I noted in my review of his 1897 Piano Trio (35:6), Rimsky-Korsakov didn’t think much of himself as a composer of chamber music, having concluded, after leaving that work unfinished, that “chamber music is not my area.” The two pieces on this disc date from an earlier period but suggest a similar discomfort with the chamber-music medium. Rimsky composed his String Quartet, No. 2, “On Russian Themes,” in 1878-79 but was dissatisfied with it and withheld it from publication. He subsequently reworked the first three movements into his Sinfonietta on Russian Themes, op. 31, leaving the fugal final movement, In the Monastery , as a stand-alone piece in its original form. The notes for this recording claim that he also reused the material from this movement in Sadko , but I don’t hear anything that I recognize as being in that opera. I don’t know what the tempo marking is for this piece, but it sounds to me like it would benefit from a quicker pace than that employed by the Leipzig players. The other Rimsky piece, Chorale and Variations, dates from 1885 and lasts less than five minutes. It is another neobaroque exercise that may have been part of Rimsky’s self-instruction in compositional technique.


Unlike Rimsky, Borodin and Rachmaninoff had a genuine affinity for chamber music, as is evidenced in Rachmaninoff’s case especially by his ravishing Cello Sonata. The two quartet movements offered here date from 1889, during the composer’s student years at the Moscow Conservatory. Even as a student, Rachmaninoff was capable of writing music of lasting value, for instance, his one-act opera Aleko . The quartet movements, however, strike me as being more at the apprentice level. The sweetly lyrical, rather Tchaikovskian Romanze is pleasing if a bit repetitious. The Scherzo seems somewhat thin in terms of invention and development. The Leipzig performances are straightforward and matter-of-fact, perhaps too much so. More expressivity and shaping might make a better case for these pieces.


I am quite taken, however, with the Leipzig players’ reading of Borodin’s familiar quartet, the one truly accomplished work on the disc. Here the balance among the instruments is finely judged, textures are clear, detail is firmly etched, and continuity of line is consistently maintained. Tempos are well integrated and for the most part firmly sustained, but with subtle application of rubato. The Leipzig players take a broader approach in the outer movements than the Borodin or Pražák Quartets (Chandos and Praga, respectively). After an unusually pensive, lyrical, and serene first movement, the Scherzo is quick but graceful. The famous Notturno flows appealingly at a tempo that seems ideal, and an expansive finale concludes the work in a manner consistent with the overall conception.


This recording benefits from open and detailed sound, a realistic image, and an extended frequency range. The cello’s contributions register with gratifying solidity and impact. On my system at least, the sound can also be a touch abrasive at higher dynamic levels.


I can recommend this release for its fine and distinctive performance of the Borodin work. In addition, it will be of interest to those wishing to explore the byways of Russian chamber music, although the other works are not of great significance. Other recordings exist of the Rimsky and Rachmaninoff pieces, but I haven’t heard them. Afanasiev is otherwise unrepresented in the catalog, and from a historical standpoint it is valuable to have him added to it.


FANFARE: Daniel Morrison

The Invisible City of Kitezh, completed in 1905, is a remarkable opera that fuses folklore, mysticism and realism. Its subject is the story of the advancing Mongol army�s entry to Great Kitezh and the city�s subsequent miraculous survival. Rejecting archaisms and the more religiously inclined suggestions of his librettist, Rimsky-Korsakov sought to create an opera that �is contemporary and even fairly advanced�. It is therefore through-composed, hinting at times at Wagnerian procedure, and flooded with the composer�s rich, apt and brilliant orchestral palette, fully supportive of the powerful vocal writing.

Classical Music

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronya • Vitaly Panfilov ( Prince Vsevolod ); Tatiana Monogarova ( Fevronya ); Mikhail Gubsky ( Grishka Kuterma ); Mikhail Kazakov ( Prince Yury ); Gevorg Hakobyan ( Fyodor Poyarok ); Marika Gulordava ( Page ); Valery Gilmanov ( Bedyay ); Alexander Naumenko ( Burunday ); Alexander Vedernikov, cond; Cagliari Th O & Ch • NAXOS 2.110277/78 (2 DVDs: 187:28) Live: Cagliari 5/2–4/2008


I wanted to see this video because, for many years, I’ve heard exorbitant praise from certain critics regarding Kitezh , yet in listening to the commercial recording conducted by Valery Gergiev I felt let down. The music seemed to me flat and characterless, lacking drama, development, and momentum. Surely, I said to myself, a good stage production would change my mind, as it did with Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina.


Yet opinions on The Invisible City of Kitezh (to abbreviate its title) are divided. Although many critics wax ecstatic over Rimsky-Korsakov’s magnificent orchestration for this work, few outside Russia are very impressed by the opera as a whole. It is an overlong, derivative grand opera in which two old tales of magic were welded together by librettist Vladimir Belsky, and finally presented intact in 1908. Even the first Russian audiences didn’t care much for it, finding it very old-fashioned in concept and musical style as well as overly rambling, though it is still periodically revived, mostly within Russia.


This production gives us a rare glimpse of the opera as performed in Italy. The audience reaction is not enthusiastic; on the contrary, when the applause comes at the ends of acts, it sounds like perhaps 80 to 100 people half-heartedly clapping.


One glance at the production tells you why. Although it is not Regietheater —the characters are, thankfully, clad in traditional-looking costumes—Eimuntas Nekro?ius’s idiotic staging has too much symbolism and too little that resembles reality. The first act, set in the “woods,” presents a stage littered with “wooden” structures, bird houses and the like. Get it? Woods. The presentation of Little Kitezh, where the maiden Fevronya is to marry Prince Vsevolod, is cluttered with giant, tinfoil-covered bell-like objects with people popping out of their tops. Get it? Bells. This kind of idiocy continues throughout a production of a work in which the music itself is also static and rarely wedded to the text. In act IV, scene 1, where Fevronya and Grishka are supposed to be wandering in the woods, what you see is a plain blue-tiled floor with two Erector-set structures in the background. Apparently, Nekro?ius ran out of birdhouses, but not to despair! When Grishka runs off into the woods and Fevronya is left alone, two giant, hideous bird creatures sneak out of the woods and behind her as she sleeps. Perhaps Nekro?ius has seen too many of the Alien movies. In the final scene, supposed to represent Kitezh triumphant, the stage is filled with objects that look like rocket silos.


Musically, many passages sound like leavings from Boris Godunov, and not good leavings at that, so even when the singers are excellent the plot crawls along. It is an opera more about characters who stand there and sing than about characters creating a musical drama. Compare, for instance, the first act to the similar situation in Verdi’s Don Carlo. A prince meets a beautiful woman in the woods, and they fall in love. Verdi miraculously manages to wed lovely music, some of it even memorable, to a flexible musical structure in which the orchestra comments on or moves the action. Rimsky-Korsakov creates a static structure wedded to pretty but undistinguished melodies that just toodle along, and do so for half an hour.


Moreover, the plot is remarkably dismal and depressing for a magic or fairy-tale opera. Everyone sings about death even before the Tartars invade Russia, and several characters die except Fevronya and the seedy drunkard Grishka Kuterma, who becomes a traitor, willing to turn Kitezh over to invading Tartars and finger Fevronya as the snitch just to save his own worthless hide. Prince Vsevolod goes off to battle for Kitezh, not to win it but to die in it. (I’m guessing he flunked military school.) He does so, but returns in the second half of act IV as a ghost, and at the end of the opera Fevronya marries the ghost. And you talk about overlong … each of the first two acts runs over a half hour, but each of the last two acts runs more than an hour apiece.


Getting to the performance, Tatiana Monogarova is simply magnificent as Fevronya, not only vocally but histrionically, which is important because this is a rare Russian opera in that the soprano dominates everything. Here is a woman who fully understands how to inhabit a role. You come to believe wholeheartedly in her character within the first five minutes she is onstage, and she holds you in her thrall to the end. As for her voice, it is a remarkably rich lyric soprano, close to spinto in power, exactly the kind of voice Rimsky wanted for this part. Her midrange, in fact, reminds me strongly of Mirella Freni at her best, only with more power. The top range is not as lovely as Freni’s, but it has its own interesting luster and more metal. Monogarova made her American debut as Lisa in Pique Dame in Houston in 2010, and also began singing Cio-Cio-San around the same time in Europe. She is signed with IMG, and I really do wish her well in what I hope will be a major career.


Vitaly Panfilov, as Prince Vsevolod, is neither an interesting actor nor a particularly fine singer. The voice is fluttery, dry, and percussive. He sings on pitch and phrases well, but that is all one can say of him. His stage presence registers somewhere between nil and mediocre. On the other hand, Mikhail Gubsky as the nefarious Grishka Kuterma is a superb stage actor, though his voice is strictly that of a good comprimario. Nevertheless, the world needs good comprimarios, and he is certainly one of them. His pathetic wheedling is completely believable.


A word of praise is also due Marika Gulordava in the somewhat thankless role of the Page. The Page is analogous to Cassandra in Les Troyens or the Simpleton in Boris, someone who warns of danger to come. Though her role is important it is not as long as either of the other two, yet Gulordava is simply stunning in her one big scene. Her voice is not as beautiful as Monogarova’s, but it has a laser-beam focus with a bright, perhaps over-brilliant top. As a musician and singing actress she is first-rate. I also hope for her to have a good career. Mikhail Kazakov, singing the role of Vesvolod’s father, Prince Yury, has a nice voice but an uneven flutter and a constricted low range, a real detriment for a Russian bass.


Alexander Vedernikov is a fine conductor who obviously loves and understands this music. He brings out all of the wonderful orchestral subtleties of the score and moves the opera about as well as can be expected under the circumstances. Indeed, his conducting here is finer for this particular work than Gergiev’s.


My copy of the DVD may have been defective, but all through the first two acts the video is out of synch with the audio, as if one were watching something in which the video was on a two-second tape delay. On the second DVD, most of it is in synch, yet there are still strange moments when the picture freezes for a couple of seconds, only to jump ahead and eventually catch up with the audio.


Thus there are good and bad points to be taken into consideration in approaching both the work and the performance, but if you are fond of Kitezh I would recommend this for the excellent acting of a handful of participants and the excellent singing of the two sopranos.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley


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THE LEGEND OF THE INVISIBLE CITY OF KITEZH AND THE MAIDEN FEVRONYA

Opera in 4 Acts. Sung in Russian
Libretto by Vladimir I. Belsky

Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich – Mikhail Kazakov
Hereditary prince Vsevolod Yuryevich – Vitaly Panfilov
Fevronya – Tatiana Monogarova
Grishka Kuterma – Mikhail Gubsky
Fyodor Poyarok – Gevorg Hakobyan
Page – Marika Gulordava
Two notables – Gianluca Floris, Marek Kalbus
Bedyay – Valery Gilmanov
Burunday – Alexander Naumenko

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari
(chorus master: Fulvio Fogliazza)
Alexander Vedernikov, conductor

Eimuntas Nekrošius, stage director
Marius Nekrošius, set designer
Nadezhda Gultiayeva, costume designer
Audrius Jankauskas, lighting designer

Recorded live from the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Sardinia, 2 and 4 May 2008

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English
Running time: 187 mins
No. of DVDs: 2 (DVD 5 + DVD 9)

Classical Music

RECITAL

The performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.1 in April 2002 with the BBCSO was the last concert he gave before his death two months later. Svetlanov's studio made Tchaikovsky recordings with the USSR Symphony Orchestra for Melodiya in the 1960's were the cornerstones of the catalogue at the time and he brings an unqualified authority to the Barbican concert recorded here. Svetlanov's account of Stravinsky's Firebird is superbly detailed and imaginative with the Philharmonia in tremendous form. The digital sound recorded in the Barbican for both performances is totally natural and warm. These live recordings are issued for the first time on CD.

All four works on this disc rely on existing compositions, with titles that more or less specifically refer to this fact. In the case of Rachmaninov's Corelli Variations, it is the famous theme used by Corelli in his violin sonata La Follia which undergoes a radical pianistic treatment taking it through all the sonic and atmospheric possibilities offered by the instrument. With his celebrated transcription of Bach's Chaconne, Ferruccio Busoni had a very different aim, wanting to shed new light on the work without actually changing it. As he himself wrote, Bach taught him 'to recognize the truth that good, great and universal music remains the same, regardless of whatever means through which it resounds.' A virtuoso pianist, Busoni nonetheless had recourse to great skills in writing idiomatically for the instrument, and turned his transcription into a truly pianistic work. Ravel's collection of waltzes was composed as a nod to Schubert, who in 1823 had written two collections of waltzes, the Valses nobles and Valses sentimentales. In no way is it possible to call the work a pastiche, however - in it Ravel shows the range of his musical palette, in a manner that caused Debussy to call his ear 'the most refined that has ever existed'. Finally, Stravinsky's Three movements from Petrushka is the composer's arrangement of music from his own ballet, commissioned by Arthur Rubinstein. The origin of the music to Petrushka was in fact a sketched work for piano and orchestra, and the later arrangement was therefore to an extent a return to the original concept. The result is a virtuoso piece, in which an almost percussive approach to the instrument is combined with lightning-quick changes in atmosphere and sound. Freddy Kempf has previously recorded no less than ten highly acclaimed solo discs for BIS, of which the latest also contained a series of legendary piano works, namely Mussorgsky's Pictures, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit and Balakirev's Islamey - according to Gramophone's reviewer 'a formidable programme formidably played... This is "live" virtuosity with a vengeance, with absolutely no hint of a safety net.'

Classical Music

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)Richard Strauss (1864-1949) NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic OrchestraJacek Kaspszyk, conductor Suites for Orchestra - Stravinsky, R. StraussStravinsky: The Pulcinella SuiteStrauss: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Op. 60

This 6th volume gives attention to the less frequently performed musical works of the "Ballet russes". Over 70 minutes. (SWR Music)

Classical Music