Elena Kuschnerova was
born in Moscow and studied at the Central
School of Music with Tatiana Kestner
and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
She’s lived in Germany since 1992 and
has made numerous tours, making a number
of recordings, from Scarlatti and Bach
to Prokofiev of which this Mussorgsky
release proves to be a most welcome
addition to the catalogue. Pictures
at an Exhibition is coupled with the
essentially Franco-Germanic inspirations
of the Klavierstücke, whilst an
admixtures of the Nationalist Russian
school provides a welcome dash of colour
and vivacity.
Pictures at an Exhibition
receives a persuasive interpretation.
The opening Promenade starts gently,
almost with meditative distraction,
before growing in surety and cumulative
weight, strong on increasing chordal
power. Gnomus is malign and The Old
Castle gains through the clarity of
the probing left hand accents and some
staccato phrasing and the knowingly
reduced and tiered dynamics. Bydlo is
heavy with its rocking accompaniment.
Kuschnerova manages to make the lumbering
ox recede into the distance as she reduces
volume; the painting seems to pass across
our vision as we listen. I liked her
silvery articulation in the Ballet of
the Unhatched Chicks and the unusual
delicacy of one side, at least, of Goldenberg
and Schmuyle. She takes a fine tempo
for Limoges – plenty of digital clarity
here – whilst Baba-Yaga sounds quite
objectified and not hammed up. The Great
Gate of Kiev starts with real elegance
and she abjures superficial excitement
in favour of a convincing musical statement.
The Klavierstücke
are immediately likeable if not necessarily
profound. Une plaisanterie
adheres strongly to the Schumannesque
model, as does Impromptu passionné,
though here the limpid trajectory of
the lyricism is stronger. En Crimée
– Hoursouff. Notes de voyage
may sound Lisztian but has a simple
folk lilt whereas Méditation.
Feuillet d’album, written the year
before his death, has some intriguing
wandering harmonies amidst its rather
Chopinesque patina whilst Au village
opens in familiar fashion before embracing
richly romantic then friskier folk dance.
Mussorgsky’s humorous side can be gauged
from La couturière. Scherzino
as well as the hijinks of Porte-enseigne-Polka,
written when he was a boy, and his
ability to spin a line of chaste delicacy
from Une larme (1880). There
are no great surprises among these small
pieces but they make for attractive
listening.
Orfeo has provided
good notes and the acoustic – from the
studios of Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich
– is not at all clinical or cold, rather
opening warmly. An attractive and welcome
disc.
Jonathan Woolf
Elena Kuschnerova (piano) 
