Selected comparisons
Le Coq d’Or Suite – Philh O/
Kurtz (EMI 0777-7-67729-2-9)
Polovtsian Dances – Beecham Choir
Soc/RPO/Beecham (EMI 7243-5-66983-2-1)
Capriccio Espagnol – LSO/Mackerras
(Telarc CD-80208)
Russian Easter Festival Overture
– OSR/Ansermet (Decca 443 464-2),
Philh O/Svetlanov (Hyperion CDA66399)
The stereophonic vinyl
LP record held sway for some thirty
years before it was rudely ousted from
its throne by the uppity young CD. Although
now only some twenty years old, the
CD is already being assailed from all
sides by a host of pretenders to its
throne. Some of these, including SACD
and DVD-A, are "pretenders"
in both senses of the word - not
genuinely new, but simply expansions
of the capability of CD technology.
I doubt that any of
the offspring of CD will actually ascend
to the throne. CD technology increasingly
looks like the end of the line for the
"gramophone" principle. It
doesn’t require clairvoyance to guess
that the next ruler of the roost will
be based on solid-state technology.
The players/recorders will have no moving
parts, and thus will steadfastly remain
in pristine working order, even when
they are consigned to the dustbin to
make way for the next model, with even
whizzier bells and whistles.
Almost inevitably,
the carriers will be minuscule memory
cards, very much as we already use in
digital cameras. I will sorely miss
the booklets, which will have to go
because a booklet the size of a postage
stamp is hardly an ergonomic option.
I will not miss that abomination,
MP3, and its ilk, whose main contribution
to the world of audio has been the surgical
removal of the "hi" from "hi-fi".
Thankfully, they will become superfluous
when gigabytes cost peanuts.
Right now, though,
the "hi-est fi" audio carrier
is SACD. Mercury, true to form, have
married SACD to their time-honoured
Living Presence recording methodology.
However, the situation is intriguingly
different from what it was when Living
Presence first was wed to old-fashioned
CD. At this juncture you could, if you
so wish, satisfy your urge to know what’s
so intriguing, by taking a peep at a
review
I prepared earlier.
Believe it or not,
but in my time I have worn out not one
but two copies of SR90122. Nowadays,
kids seem to get their kicks from sniffing
glue or blasting aerosol cans of butane
up their noses, but when I was that
age I got my kicks sniffing Le Coq
d’Or (or any other Rimsky-Korsakov
that I could lay my hands on) and blasting
the Polovtsian Dances into my
ears. I sometimes wonder: if my parents
had known what this stuff was doing
to the insides of their lad’s brain,
would they have forbidden it? Anyway,
by the time the second disc had gone
the way of all vinyl, the original Mercury
LP was no longer available, and ever
since then I have had to make do with
a markedly inferior mid-price Philips
pressing. In fact, this was so poor
that it was touch and go which I discarded,
the clapped-out Mercury disc or the
newly-acquired Philips. In the end,
I kept the Philips because it also included
the Prince Igor Overture. That
was a Big Mistake, for which I have
repented at leisure.
Partly to make up for
the loss, eventually I got hold of another
classic version of Le Coq d’Or.
This came on a 2-CD "profile"
of Efrem Kurtz - 140 minutes
of undiluted bliss for ardent fans of
that uniquely Russian brand of colourful,
evocative music. Somehow, I never did
get round to rooting out an alternative
Polovtsian Dances with chorus – they
aren’t exactly thick on the ground - but
that sorted itself out when I reviewed
Beecham’s famous recording of Scheherazade.
A caveat is in order, methinks. As an
impressionable youth, I succumbed to
the music’s exotic spell exclusively
- and exhaustively! - through
this Mercury LP (SR90122). Even today,
I get a special frisson when I listen
to it. To put it bluntly, I am prejudiced.
Therefore I must be careful – and
ruthlessly comparative.
First off, then, let’s
look at the suite from Le Coq d’Or.
Like most of his operas, Rimsky-Korsakov’s
final foray into the form is a fairy-tale
but, uniquely for him, one with a venomous
satirical sting. The suite contains
some of Rimsky-Korsakov’s most magical
and luminous orchestral colours, and
thus forms a fitting representative
of the pinnacle of his art. Let’s not
forget, that this is music that, in
spite of its predominantly leisurely
pace, captured the imagination of at
least one averagely hedonistic schoolboy.
How does Dorati’s version fare when
pitted against Kurtz’s, recorded some
seven years later?
Apart from a slightly
quicker third movement, Kurtz is substantially
slower than Dorati. He is also more
flexible, though this does not always
mean "better". Following a
carefully moulded cock-crow, Kurtz’s
dreamy drifting admirably captures the
music’s realisation of "we’re busy
doing nothing". Just one of several
felicitous touches occurs near the end
of the first movement, where Kurtz neatly
balances the horn to slightly weird,
unsettling effect, a ghost of future
disaster haunting the peace of the present.
Dorati is more direct.
He dispatches the opening fanfare with
military precision, and for the "somnolescent"
music keeps his tempo both more consistent
and less overtly idle. However, whilst
Kurtz makes sure that the mounted cymbal
is clearly audible, Dorati demonstrates
that this is a mistake - the
LSO’s cymbal makes its presence palpable
only through its subtle but spine-tingling
intensification of the honeyed atmosphere.
Moreover, by giving his players some
leeway, Dorati allows the LSO’s sensuous
woodwind arabesques to coil every bit
as smokily as Kurtz’s.
The second movement’s
pervasive aura of mystery and puzzlement
is beautifully elicited by Kurtz at
a very broad tempo. Unfortunately, in
starting his march at the identical
pulse, he renders it clod-hopping and
disjointed. His subsequent attempt to
get it moving proves to be too little
and too late, because it still sounds
rather weary and care-worn. On the other
hand, by bringing Dodon’s troops prancing
playfully out of the undergrowth, Dorati
establishes the same aura through the
contrast of cockiness and consternation.
Honours are about even
in the third episode. Both conductors
inject just the right dosage of saccharine
into the main melody, which is a real
treat for folk with sweet teeth. In
the agitated central dance, Dorati’s
percussion is much the more colourfully
characterised, whilst Kurtz accumulates
a greater sense of uninhibited high-jinks
through his much more cunningly applied
accelerando.
The concluding Marriage
Feast and Lamentable End of King Dodon
is in every respect the climax of the
suite. Rimsky-Korsakov, I am sure, intended
it to be a pyrotechnic display of virtuosic
orchestration similar in impact to,
albeit on a smaller scale than, the
finale of Scheherazade. Obvious
as that might sound, it’s worth remembering
how often this music, which demands
a tiger on the rostrum, seems to be
performed by putative pussy-cats. Though
far from being any timid tabby, Kurtz
is nevertheless too cautious by half.
Like Dorati, he is alive to every nuance
of Rimsky-Korsakov’s astonishing orchestral
palette of poster-paints, but sadly
he seems to overlook that other important
aspect: the music’s savagely manic quality.
The introductory paragraph,
brooding, shimmering, squirming, inching
menacingly up the scale at each repetition,
is meant to bring us ever closer to
the edges of our seats. Kurtz leaves
us lounging comfortably whilst Dorati,
whose muted brass are positively flesh-crawling,
has us chewing our fingernails. From
the moment of release when the merry
march tune rolls in, Dorati again racks
up the tension relentlessly, screwing
out of the music every last shred of
its luridly illuminated hysteria. Such
massive aggression is way over the top,
of course, but to my mind that’s exactly
the right place for it!
Le Coq d’Or
shared SR90122 with the fabulous Polovtsian
Dances. Although nominally by Borodin,
you can frequently sense in it the handiwork
of Rimsky-Korsakov, who collaborated
with Glazunov on the completion of Prince
Igor. There is an abundance - arguably
an over-preponderance - of
recordings of these dances, although
very few of them incorporate the extravagance
of the opera’s prominent choral part.
In my humble opinion, this is like a
juicy fruit-cake without icing,
or an American football match without
cheerleaders – which are (dare
I say?) the only aspect of the entire
spectacle that is even remotely entertaining.
Aye, but there’s the rub: really, "spectacle",
not to mention "oriental splendour",
is the entire raison d’être
of these dances – leave out
the chorus and you ditch a goodly proportion
of the spectacular impact.
For example, I have
a perfectly adequate recording by the
LSO conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch (Pickwick
PCD 804). The problem is that, in common
with any other purely orchestral performance,
it is full of little "holes".
No oboist, no matter how exquisitely
he or she plays, can quite capture the
seductive charm of ladies singing the
"Stranger in Paradise" tune.
More significantly no orchestra, no
matter how brilliantly it plays, can
quite blind you to certain rather limp
moments – moments where a
lusty chorus should be carrying the
line. Maybe I’m just biased, because
I grew up with a recording that included
the chorus, but I can’t convince myself
of that – the evidence for
the orchestral version’s defence is
just too full of "holes"!
As far as recordings
of the full, choral version are concerned,
the roost is still ruled by two almost
exactly contemporary recordings: this
one and the one made just over four
months later by the inimitable Sir Thomas
Beecham. Depending on your point of
view, these rival versions are either
gratifyingly or teeth-grindingly complementary!
Whilst Beecham is characteristically
laid-back, buoying the rhythms and seemingly
letting the music swing along of its
own accord, Dorati is - equally
characteristically - "stood
forward", purposefully propelling
the music on the path he’s chosen for
it. However, Beecham doesn’t sound too
slow, any more than Dorati sounds too
driven. In revealing more detail, Beecham
yields on richness of texture to Dorati.
If you prefer a big choral sound, then
go for Beecham. If you prefer an even-handed
balance between chorus and orchestra,
then go for Dorati. If you insist on
an absolutely hiss-free background,
then you’re out of luck!
In both versions, I
noticed that there were occasions when
individual voices tended to poke out
from the choral texture. In Beecham’s
case, this would be down to a chorus
microphone being placed a bit too closely.
In Dorati’s case, the reason is a mite
more curious. The story goes that, whilst
preparing to make the recording, they
couldn’t get the balance they wanted
between the LSO chorus and orchestra.
No matter how they tweaked the "line
of three" microphone set-up, the
chorus just wasn’t coming through. Then,
it seems, prompted by the fact that
the microphones were omni-directional,
someone had a bright idea. They moved
the chorus from its customary position
behind the orchestra, and into the
stalls. This meant that the chorus
could be positioned nearer to the microphone
array, without the inconvenience of
the chorus members riding piggy-back
on the string players.
That’s a neat bit of
lateral thinking but, in addition to
bending the "rules" of the
Living Presence technique close
to breaking-point, it seems to have
had the undesirable side-effect of placing
some individuals a bit too close to
one microphone or another, with the
same outcome as in the Beecham recording.
I know that it’s easy to say this with
hindsight, but in both instances the
cause of the balance problem boiled
down to the perennial one of trying
to make do with a chorus that’s simply
too small relative to the orchestral
forces. Beef up the choral contingent
and, without recourse to any technical
jiggery-pokery, they will make enough
sound to do their job properly.
In their different
ways these are both stunning performances,
played with a verve and virtuosity that
will create havoc with your hackles.
Thinking about it, I’m rather glad that
I’ve got the pair of them on my shelf.
In the far more popular
pieces from SR90265 the competition
is fiercer, partly because there’s a
lot of it, and partly because much of
that has the advantage of more modern
recording technology. I also feel a
little less uncomfortable, because this
LP I never possessed and, strange to
relate, these Mercury recordings are
entirely "new" to me! In some
ways, the Russian Easter Festival
Overture and the Capriccio Espagnol
make strange bedfellows - compare
the mixtures: the former’s solemn, sacred
chants and rhythmically bluff, densely-coloured
festivities with the latter’s sultry,
smouldering scenes and scintillating
dances. In another way, they lie together
quite nicely, forming a compact (on
LP, too compact!) reminder of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
supreme sensitivity to his symphonic
scenarios.
The relative timings
of the overture are interesting. Overall,
Svetlanov’s 1989 account takes 15’00,
fairly close to Dorati’s 15’09, whilst
Ansermet, recorded in the same year
as Dorati, clocks a mere 14’40. Ansermet’s
timing might seem brisk, but the reason
is simply that his average tempo
is the highest. Compared to the others,
he takes the slow music faster and the
fast music slower. Svetlanov, on the
other hand, takes an eternity over the
slow music, and whips up a fair old
lather in the allegros.
Technically, Ansermet’s
SRO is utterly eclipsed by both the
Philharmonia and the LSO, and it does
show in a distinct lack of excitement.
Nevertheless, under Ansermet’s baton
their playing is filled with affection
and warmth. It may be an acquired taste,
but once acquired, the SRO’s quaint
winds bring their own special sort of
pleasure. Judged against the standards
Decca were setting at the time, the
recording is, frankly, a bit of a mess,
sounding murky and congested, with enough
tape hiss to seduce a randy cobra.
It’s thus surprising
that, even though it isn’t exactly what
you’d call hair-raising, the best-sounding
tam-tam of the three is Ansermet’s.
I find it extremely odd. When you think
about it, one of the secrets of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
success as an orchestrator was his careful
husbandry of the more potent instrumental
special effects. In this work his deploys
the tam-tam, that most potent of potent
special effects, with something approaching
profligacy. For some reason, I seem
to imagine that professional performers
and recording engineers would generally
be aware of that, yet it seems to have
eluded both Dorati/Mercury and Svetlanov/Hyperion.
Where Ansermet allows
his solo cadenzas some latitude within
the framework of his steady basic tempo,
Svetlanov permits something more like
lassitude, and the "tempo framework"
feels conspicuous by its absence: he
languishes in the slow passages, and
in the quick stuff takes off like a
hare with a pack of greyhounds snapping
at his heels. As, in terms of sound
quality, Svetlanov has the best recording
but not the most detailed, so in terms
of performance, Svetlanov is perhaps
the most viscerally exciting but not
the most sympathetic.
Is this performance
considered "authentic"? If
it is, then I don’t go along with it.
I like to imagine that those chants
and arabesques are being sung by celebrants.
As such they need to be phrased within
the spans of human breaths. I also feel
that conductors should not try to gloss
over the sheer mass of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
scoring of some of the fast music, as
though it were somehow a "tactical
error" in the orchestration. It
is there because the composer sought
a degree of gravity in the proceedings.
Of the three, Dorati
provides the most satisfying overall
view. His speed for the slow introduction
differs from Ansermet by a mere second.
Yet, even though he rips into the fast
music with great gusto, he actually
takes longer than Ansermet to get through
the main body of the piece! This is
all down to his possibly surprising
willingness to chance his arm regarding
elasticity of tempo. It pays off: as
well as being physically exciting, Dorati
is both more involved and more involving
than Svetlanov. He also gives us the
most colourfully pointed performance,
with some superbly clangourous percussion,
adding particular poignancy to my querulous,
"So where is the b****y
tam-tam, then?!" That said, it’s
about the only foot that Dorati puts
anywhere near wrong.
The Capriccio Espagnol
is hardly music of the greatest philosophical
import, but it is the archetypal "Concerto
for Orchestra". This scintillating
exploration of the colouristic capabilities
of the symphony orchestra still stands
head and shoulders above just about
all the competition. It is beautifully
crafted music, in which Rimsky-Korsakov
doesn’t just score brilliantly – loads
of composers can do that! - but
deploys what I think of as "strategic
orchestration", from a box of neat
tricks like swapping solo rôles,
or creating "counterpoints of colour".
To my mind, in the
Capriccio Espagnol performers
simply must get two things absolutely
spot-on: if they balance the colours
right and put spring in the rhythms,
the rest will just drop into place.
Easy, isn’t it? Well, no, it isn’t – far
from it, judging by the number of unsatisfactory
performances I’ve heard down through
the years. In fact, I’m still waiting
for the one that will completely satisfy
me. Both Mackerras and Dorati come pretty
close, but both – to my supreme
frustration – seem to miss
what seem like glaringly obvious points.
There is an astonishingly
close correspondence between the playing
times of Dorati’s recording and that
of Mackerras, made all of 31 years later.
The differences in seconds, [Dorati
– Mackerras], are (1) –1, (2) 26, (3)
–2, (4) 4, (5) –1. In other words, Dorati
is fractionally more mobile in the quick
movements, and substantially slower
only in the songful second. Listen to
Mackerras in isolation, and it all sounds
wonderful. He launches the Alborada
with glowing festivity, sounding full
yet detailed, and with a deliciously
burbling solo clarinet. Mackerras’s
quicker timing for the romantic Variazioni
is largely due to his setting off at
a sunny andante, which he relaxes considerably
when that air of tremolando mystery
seeps out of the undergrowth. Unfortunately,
during the andante phase the pace slackens
suddenly, almost imperceptibly but damagingly.
I cannot hear a join, but I am convinced
that this is due to an edit.
In the Scena,
plenty of freedom is given to the various
soli, with the important percussion
contributions all seeming in good order,
and the contrasting melodic refrains
of the incorporated Canto Guitano
nicely pointed. Following the harp cadenza,
the Canto is made to bounce along
merrily, disgorging a Fandango
that is at first stern then prickling
with gorgeous colour. All is capped
by a whirling coda. Splendid.
I’ve heard recordings
that start the last track immediately
after the harp cadenza, but I’m pleased
to see that both Telarc and Mercury
place the start of the Fandango
correctly! It strikes me as odd that,
as the story goes, at the work’s first
performance "remarkably, each of
the five movements was individually
encored". Remarkable indeed, when
the last two run continuously. I’d love
to know the truth of the matter.
Mackerras’s recording
may sound splendid yet, in spite of
the intervening thirty years of unprecedented
advancement in recording technology,
it doesn’t sound as splendid as Dorati’s.
That much is obvious right from the
word "go". I hardly dare say
this, but "it’s as if a veil had
been lifted from over the music"!
Instead of Mackerras’s richly-textured,
beefy thrust we hear a more open sound
with a wider apprehensible spectral
response. Details that were at best
dimly perceived, like the tingling tambourine
or some "strumming" pizzicato
fiddles, now glitter in the sunshine.
At the slower pace - and it
isn’t all that much slower - Dorati’s
Variazioni are bathed less in
sunshine and more in sultry moonlight.
The sound may lack the succulence of
Mackerras, but Dorati’s pliability makes
his much the sexier interpretation.
Nor, in the Scena,
do Dorati’s LSO soli yield anything
to their counterparts of thirty years
later. However the harp, which in the
Telarc recording had sounded to be entirely
on its own, is here all too clearly
accompanied, as it should be, by the
tinkling triangle. I have to wonder:
why, other than in the pursuit of "digital
subtlety", has it been suppressed
to the point of inaudibility by Mackerras
and/or the Telarc engineers? It isn’t
even as though there was anything else
going on that might mask it out. Not
that Dorati is beyond reproach: along
with Mackerras he is guilty of leaving
the castanets – the castanets,
for heaven’s sake, in this of all
works! – standing somewhere
outside the stage door. Oh, you can
hear them, sometimes, I suppose, but
you have to strain your ears. Anyway,
that’s not the point, is it?
Then, when the Canto
gets swinging, Dorati keeps the bass
line pulsing, so that the simple but
telling "drop" on the repeat
of the tune can impart its feeling of
lift. Mackerras brings out this bass
pulse through the timpani rather than
the bass fiddles so, when the timpani
cease playing, suddenly there are no
"stepping-stones" on which
the tune can bounce. Granted, it’s a
small point, but small points like this
are what makes Dorati’s performance,
at practically the same tempi as Mackerras,
so much more vivacious.
While I’m at it, there’s
one other "small point". In
the climax of the Canto, just
before the Fandango stamps in,
Rimsky-Korsakov gives the violins an
unusually athletic accompanying line.
Many years ago, I had an Ormandy LP
containing this work, and as long as
I live I’ll never forget his way with
this line. Really, it had to be heard
to be believed: the violins of the Philadelphia
Orchestra laid into it as though they
were cracking whips. It was absolutely
electrifying! The thing is, this line
positively cries out for this treatment,
yet - other than Ormandy – I’ve
never heard anyone really cut it loose.
Anyway, that’s entirely
by the bye. As if to ram home the "vivacity"
point, Dorati’s management of the breathless
race for the line leaves Mackerras,
let me stress by comparison,
sounding not much short of drawing-room
prim. I may be still waiting for that
"ideal" Capriccio Espagnol
but, until it comes along, I’ll be happier
than I am with most others with this
Dorati.
What about the recordings?
In short, they are well up to Mercury’s
usual standard: wide stereo spread with
a better-than-average depth of stage,
full and warm but clear and finely detailed
all the way up the frequency spectrum,
and with a quite astonishing dynamic
range for their age. Of course, the
background hiss, as a matter of Living
Presence principle, is all still
there, but it is uniform and falls a
long way short of unduly obtrusive.
Regarding the SR90122 items, I can add
that the recording sounds better than
ever it did on LP, and that is
saying something! On the down-side,
you are now more aware than before of
a few unwelcome "noises off",
most notably in the first movement of
Le Coq d’Or. However, this was
ever the case with good-quality remasterings
of already good analogue materials – in
fact, it’s one way of measuring
the quality of the remastering! So,
don’t let that put you off, eh?
All in all, this is
a first-class example of Dorati’s art.
Occasionally a bit brusque and unbending,
he was nevertheless capable of creating
sensitive, idiomatic and red-blooded,
or even blood-curdling, interpretations,
and persuading a superb orchestra like
the LSO into exceeding its own already
high standards. What’s more, as this
recording demonstrates, in this sort
of repertoire he’s still pretty close
to the top of the tree.
Paul Serotsky
London
Symphony Orchestra Chorus 
MERCURY
LIVING PRESENCE 475 6194 SACD [67:06]
