They’re back. In a
sense they’ve never been away if you’ve
managed to catch up with the Arlecchino
and Boheme issues. Let me say right
away that if you have the latter there
was no point getting the former. If
you still have your Bohemes keep hold
of them because Archipel, who routinely
claim that their discs are remastered
with 24 bit from superb source material,
do not mount a serious challenge. Added
to which there are no notes and they’ve
not managed to deal with the problematic
Neuhaus recording of the Piano Concerto;
someone will sooner or later get to
grips with it and give it to us in better-than-we-thought-possible
state. But not yet.
In a sense there’s
little to add. I know Golovanov rouses
ire in tidy minded aesthetes who hotly
deride his galvanic and not-always-immaculate
shaggy orchestral discipline. Still
even they, one hopes, would baulk at
running down his Scriabin, one of those
composers for whom Golovanov was put
on this earth to conduct. He was an
individualist of course and there are
some textual emendations but irrespective
of this you will be, I guarantee, swept
up in the maelstrom of his galvanic
conducting.
A few random thoughts;
the sound spectrum is constricted but
if you want celestial sound quality
you won’t even be reading this. What
you get from Golovanov is electricity.
He brings out the salient Wagnerianisms
of the First Symphony despite a clumsy
side join (via LP?) and surface noise
and raw somewhat strident sound that
can fracture in fortes. But just listen
to the bleached high winds in the fourth
movement or, in the fifth, to the raw
Russian trumpets and then be swept up
by the finale’s percussion and blazing
choir (though mezzo Legostayeva is inclined
to sound matronly). And Prometheus really
does blaze with incessant fervour with
Goldenweiser prominent in the sound
picture.
The Second Symphony
was recorded slightly later than the
First – in 1950. The sound is still
splintery and crumbly. But it doesn’t
compromise the impulsive lyric curve
that courses through the symphony. Coupled
on this disc, as with Boheme’s issue,
is the Poem of Ecstasy, a rich and leisurely
reading with Popov’s famously taken
trumpet dizzying in its brazenness.
The final disc of three has the Third
Symphony and the Concerto. The Poe-meets-Mahler
rhetoric of the Third survives the recessed
1946 sonics – along with the Concerto
this is the earliest recorded of the
set. As for the Piano Concerto as I
suggested this is crying out for expert
restorative work. Strings are thin,
the piano sound is ill focused, even
though Neuhaus plays with impressive
limpidity and the violins do phrase
with considerable understanding. It’s
a performance I admire and I think it
will yield greater rewards when sympathetically
dealt with.
Given everything you
should seek out Boheme. If you can’t
find it and you need Golovanov’s Scriabin
– and you will need Golovanov’s Scriabin
for a comprehensive collection – then
this is a stopgap purchase, the limits
of which I’ve outlined. But the merit
of the performances is huge reward.
Jonathan Woolf
Alexander Goldenweiser (piano) Symphony Orchestra
of the All Union Radio, recorded 1947 
