Fresh from Melodiya’s
restoration of Svetlanov’s Kalinnikov
[review
1
review 2]comes an all-Rimsky disc
from the same source. When this Scheherazade
appeared the catalogue was not short
of recommendable candidates. Near the
top of that list stood such as Kletzki,
Reiner, Beecham, Stokowski and Monteux.
But Svetlanov brought distinctive qualities
of his own and as we’ve seen through
the years this was a score to which
he was asked to return often.
He always seems to
have taken the opening broadly so the
much later live LSO/BBC Legends performance
was very much part of the continuum
of his Scheherazade conducting
and especially when it came to tempo
relationships. Back on home ground we
find him measured and watchful but when
those climaxes come they are hammered
home – even bludgeoned. The characteristically
braying trumpets add their own beleaguered
vehemence to the proceedings. He’s emphatic
in the second movement, insistent on
some stolid-sounding paragraphs but
ones that soon open out. The trombone
principal had a big, fat tone reminiscent
of current jazz trombone player Gary
Valente in its moose-toned sleaze. Neither
he nor the trumpet principal made any
attempt at tone blending in their sections
and the results are, strictly speaking,
in that respect chaotic. But that’s
outweighed, indeed weirdly enhanced,
by the charismatic passion and opulent
theatricality of the playing, the rubato
– always subtle, never functional –
and the robust masculinity of approach.
The solo violin adheres to the expressive
theatricality of the performance – quite
florid in places as well.
When this appeared
on HMV ASD2520 it was priced at 43s.
9d. and coupled with the Oriental
Dances and Chernomors March from
Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla.
Now it’s been sensibly coupled with
a warmly sensitive Sadko and
the equally early Fantasia on Serbian
Themes. This has plenty of folkloric
drive, especially convincing in the
high winds, and some galvanizing high
spirits. At the other spectrum stands
the late 1904 At the Tomb, Prelude
to the Memory of M Belyaev which
is a study in noble resignation powered
by sheer grandeur in the brass – here
on good behaviour.
Svetlanov’s 1969 Scheherazade
is clearly an historical object
now, with getting on for forty years’s
service. But in its brazen, sometimes
indulgent and dramatic way it still
has claims to be taken as seriously
as those other august Scheherazades
mentioned above.
Jonathan Woolf
Melodiya
Catalogue
for
details
USSR Symphony Orchestra/Evgeni Svetlanov
