The Concert Suite was
completed in 1919 and written for Leopold
Auer - a violinist well known to the
Russian composer Taneyev. The two had
given recitals together in their early
careers.
Taneyev’s is a fully
rounded romantic voice acknowledging
the great classical masters - especially
Beethoven. Of course he can also be
playful - is it Tchaikovsky we hear
in the Gavotte. Bach is glimpsed in
the Prelude and in the grave introduction
to the Fairy Tale (tr. 3). The Suite
is a very successful work full of strong
invention, fascinatingly blending Russian
folk culture filtered through Tchaikovsky.
Nevertheless it has the manner of a
major romantic concerto of the late
19th century.
You may be tempted
to write this work off unheard simply
because it is a suite including variations;
that would be a mistake. At approaching
three quarters of an hour it is neither
a piece of virtuoso fluff nor an overblown
ballet. Think more in terms of an entrancingly
fey blend of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto,
the Tchaikovsky suites (especially the
Third) and Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole.
Kuusisto is simply magnificent, rock
steady in tone, playful and sensitive
and he is recorded with unflinching
immediacy which is not to say that he
overpowers the orchestra. Everything
is rendered with a completely agreeable
clarity and impact. There have been
other versions although none are currently
available. Oistrakh’s once coupled on
EMI Matrix with Rostropovich’s HMV Miaskovsky
concerto is still worth tracking down
but Kuusisto and Ondine have nothing
to fear from that quarter.
Taneyev’s opera on
the Oresteya was written between
1887 and 1894 and premiered at the Mariinsky
in October 1895. It has been recorded
and was first issued on LP by Deutsche
Grammophon (DG 2709 097) in 1979 in
the same month as Paliashvili’s ‘Absalom
and Eteri’. Olympia then reissued it
in 1985 on a 2 CD set. This was in a
version by soloists and the Chorus and
Orchestra of the Belorussian State Opera
and Ballet Theatre conducted by Tatyana
Kolomyzeva. One of these days I will
get to hear that recording but by the
look of things not any time soon. In
any event two orchestral segments have
gone on to live a negligible life separate
from the stage work: Agamemnon’s
March (Act II) and The Temple
of Apollo (Act III). The Temple
movement has great nobility and is done
here in full splendour. The Oresteya
Overture is not an operatic prelude.
It was written in 1889 in the middle
of Taneyev’s work on the opera. It has
a burly and deeply impressive majesty
with stunning echoes of swirling and
tormented late Tchaikovsky along the
way. Gentler inspirations can be heard
in the harp-led prayer at 9:05 and onwards
into a shimmering finale that recalls
Mussorgsky’s Dawn on the Neva.
Note-writer Jaakko Haapaniemi refers
to the work’s ‘brooding pathos’; I cannot
put it better.
This is one of a series
of twenty CDs freshly packaged in new
slip cases to mark Ondine’s twentieth
anniversary. The original discs have
been selected from the Finnish company’s
substantial back catalogue.
This is serious music
without severity and full of appealing
humanity. It is performed with stunning
virtuosity and complete mastery.
Rob Barnett
Pekka Kuusisto, violin 
