Modest Mussorgsky; Aram Khachaturian - Orchestral Works (Vasily Petrenko)

Information

• (01) Dmitri Kabalevsky - Colas Breugnon, Op. 24: Overture
• (02) Aram Khachaturian - Spartacus, excerpts
• (06) Rodion Shchedrin - Concerto for Orchestra No. 1 'Naughty Limericks'
• (07) Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Maurice Ravel)
• (22) Sergei Rachmaninov - 12 Romances, Op. 21: 7. Zdes′ khorosho (orch. Timothy Jackson)

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, conductor

Date: 2019
Label: Onyx Classics
http://www.onyxclassics.com/cddetail.php?CatalogueNumber=ONYX4211

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Review

This is one of those discs that commands respect (this conductor is pretty much always a safe investment) without setting the world on fire. I kept waiting for, anticipating, moments in all of these pieces when Petrenko would slip into his top gear and raise the stakes, ratchet up the excitement. Instead, here he is home from home with a series of glossy postcards from the Motherland and very much in cruise mode.

Kabalevsky’s Colas Breugnon Overture – Russia’s answer to Bernstein’s Candide Overture – zips by, its cheeky syncopated kick-back in the rhythm and rather more ‘serious’ big tune efficiently playing off each other, but leaving us wondering, perhaps, if pushing the basic tempo and screwing the tension just a tad more might have made all the difference. That is very much the feeling I take away from this truncated suite from the Bolshoi’s muscular and perennially popular epic Spartacus. The big Adagio for hero and heroine now has nautical associations, of course (The Onedin Line made Khachaturian what he always wanted to be, an international superstar), but that’s not to detract from the splendour of the tune even if the big ground-swelling climax is here less thrilling for the reticence of the trumpets.

Perhaps that is in part due to the sound picture, which certainly honours the open acoustic of Liverpool’s handsome Philharmonic Hall but lacks the ‘immediacy’ I personally welcome in music like this. Khachaturian’s most brashly scored numbers – like the close of the ‘Variation of Aegina and Bacchanalia’ and the triumphal finale – tend to swim in this acoustic and one misses the keenness, the clarity, the impact of brass and percussion, not least trumpets again in the rowdy peroration of ‘Victory of Spartacus’.

Things sound sharper with the tighter ensemble and jazz combo feel of Shchedrin’s audacious Concerto for Orchestra No 1, Naughty Limericks. The inspiration may lie with folk tunes but the effect is most definitely ‘looney tunes’. It’s kind of Till Eulenspiegel on heat and Petrenko totally ‘gets’ the irony of its prankster nature. Probably the best thing on the disc.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Petrenko’s account of the Mussorgsky/Ravel Pictures is that it feels mindful of the piano original in the way that it is inflected and shaped. Picture for picture it’s hard to fault playing or characterisation on a leisurely stroll round the gallery – but then again, do any of these aural images really leap out at you? Yes and no. The big panoply of bells at the close of ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ perhaps – suddenly overwhelming – but like ‘Bydło’, the ox-cart, it’s a performance that clings sturdily to the middle of the road.

Lovely idea to conclude with Timothy Jackson’s orchestral transcription of the wistful Rachmaninov song ‘Zdes’ khorosho’. Plainly it makes Petrenko’s heart sing.

-- Edward Seckerson, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Dec/Mussorgsky_pictures_4211.htm
https://www.allmusic.com/album/mussorgsky-pictures-at-an-exhibition-khachaturian-spartacus-suite-kabalevsky-shchedrin-rachmaninov-mw0003330710

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Modest Mussorgsky (21 March [O.S. 9 March] 1839 – 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1881) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as The Five. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period, striving to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other nationalist themes. For many years Mussorgsky's works were mainly known in versions revised or completed by other composers, but some of the original scores are now also available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modest_Mussorgsky

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Aram Khachaturian (6 June 1903 – 1 May 1978) was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers and the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century. Khachaturian is best known for his ballet music—Gayane (1942) and Spartacus (1954). His most popular piece, the "Sabre Dance" from Gayane, has been used extensively in popular culture and has been covered by a number of musicians worldwide. His music combined Armenian, Caucasian, Eastern Europe and Middle East folk music with established musical traditions of Russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram_Khachaturian

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Vasily Petrenko (born 7 July 1976, Leningrad, USSR) is a Russian conductor. Petrenko studied conducting principally under Ravil Martynov, and also learned from Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Since 2006 he has been principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and is chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra since 2013. The contract between Petrenko and the RLPO is an extended open-ended agreement with no specific scheduled time of conclusion. He is noted for his recordings of Shostakovich symphonies on Naxos and Rachmaninov on EMI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Petrenko

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