Alexander Grechaninov - Symphony No. 5; etc. (Valery Polyansky)

Information

Composer: Alexander Grechaninov

• (01) Missa oecumenica, Op. 142
• (07) Symphony No. 5 in G minor, Op. 153

Tatiana Sharova, soprano

Ludmila Kuznetsova, mezzo-soprano

Oleg Dolgov, tenor

Dmitry Fadeyev, bass

Margarita Koroleva, organ

Russian State Symphonic Cappella

Russian State Symphony Orchestra

Valery Polyansky, conductor

Date: 2000

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%209845

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Review

Who would have thought it? An intégrale of Grechaninov's quintet of symphonies. The cycle is brought to culmination with every Chandos virtue thumpingly asserted. Polyansky and all the artists are on at least decent form and the conductor keeps things moving along nicely contrary to his form in the Glazunov symphony cycle. The choir excels. The recording is big and bold without being in your lap.

Both works date from the year of Barber's First Symphony, Hovhaness's Exile Symphony, Uuno Klami's Psalmus, Koechlin's Jungle Book, Miaskovsky Symphony No. 16, Prokofiev's Eugene Onegin, Rubbra's First Symphony, Tubin Symphony No. 2, Healey Willan Symphony No. 1 and Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem.

Grechaninov seems never to have been a insurrectionist. He composes with utmost comfort within the bounds of the Russian nationalistic tradition in the case of the symphonies but straddles three idioms for the masses and vocal works. The choral idioms spanned are middle-of-the-road English choral evensong, a smoothly honeyed echo of the French choral line (Fauré, Poulenc and Paray) and the Russian Orthodox line.

The Missa Oecumenica is dedicated to the memory of Natalie Koussevitsky and, promisingly, was written entirely spontaneously. There was no commission involved. Its premiere was in Boston in 1944 when its message of pan-religious universality must have had a strong 'charge'. Eric Roseberry notes the imagery drawn from Russian traditional, Gregorian and Hebrew sources. We know all too little of Grechaninov's work but this may well be his spiritually most ambitious conception. The Mass is a work grand span and is determinedly serious. The opening Kyrie is uplifting in a way familiar from Paray's St Joan Mass as also is the Sanctus (a good track to sample). After two hearings there are for me no devastatingly memorable tunes but it leaves me with that sense of a work of sincerity worth returning to. It is a work of delicacy and exaltation. Its message of union rather than solipsistic assertion of identity in isolation and exclusion is timeless. The Agnus Dei ends without 'Barnum and Bailey' Verdi-isms but with a breathing fall into silence.

The Symphony is slap bang within the Russian nationalist tradition defined by Borodin and Rimsky. It was written in Paris. Stokowski (whose breadth of repertoire is underestimated) premiered it in Philadelphian in 1939. It must have been reassuring to the conservatively-inclined audiences. It does not have the inventive tension of Rachmaninov. Without sounding outright like either composer we can naturally count this symphony as out of the same stable as the Tchaikovsky symphonies (1-3 with moments from No 5) and the Glazunov symphonies. Do not look for the turbulence or the unsettling complexities of Walton's First, Vaughan Williams 4 or Bax 6. The symphony also has its Beethovenian moments as well as a surprising touch of Rossini and Weber - in the Andante. That movement is a good one to sample not least for the brass chorale at 10.14. For a more dynamic spin try the third movement which has a stamping dance motif of considerable quality with a touch of the Coronation Walton about it.

The Mass is a strong work and certainly worth hearing again. The symphony is pleasing but not utterly compelling. A pity that the pause between the niente end of the Mass and the start of the symphony is momentary. At 79.16 TT perhaps it was impossible to add more.

Now Chandos s there any chance that you will turn your attentions to another Russian: Maximilian Steinberg whose four symphonies (1907, 1909, 1929, 1933) are crying out for a first recording? The Fourth 'Turk-Sib' was broadcast by the BBC some years ago and the First has been recorded by Neeme Järvi (DG). He is a most promising composer.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

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Alexander Grechaninov ( 25 October [O.S. 13 October] 1864, Kaluga – 3 January 1956, New York City) was a Russian Romantic composer. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory where his main teachers were Sergei Taneyev and Anton Arensky. He subsequently moved to St. Petersburg where he studied composition and orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Grechaninov wrote five symphonies, the first premiered by Rimsky-Korsakov; four string quartets, two piano trios, sonatas for violin, cello, clarinet, piano and balalaika, several operas, song cycle Les Fleurs du Mal and much other music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Gretchaninov

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Valery Polyansky (born 19 April, 1949 in Moscow) is a Russian orchestral and choral conductor. Polyansky studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where his teachers included Boris Kulikov and Odisei Dimtriadi. Since 1992 he has been a chief  conductor and artistic director of the State Symphony Capella of Russia which consists of a symphonic orchestra and a choir, numbering more than 200 artists. Polyansky is recognized today as a leading interpreter of the works of Sergei Rachmaninov and a number of other neglected Russian composers such as Alfred Schnittke, Sergei Taneyev and Nikolai Miaskovsky.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/valery-polyansky-mn0000497046/biography

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