This three CD slip-cased set consists of discs that were previously
available singly at full price. Re-packaging has led to a pleasing
price drop. They were taped for the BBC during the years 1961
to 1968, the overwhelming majority being in mono.
A number of these performances have become well known, and so
I’ll highlight what’s in store for a prospective
purchaser. The Dvořák Concerto was given on the
day that Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring and angry protesters
can be heard decrying the invasion, shouts that are swiftly
repudiated by other audience members. Rostropovich takes the
same sort of tempi he’d taken a decade earlier with Boult,
and the same that he had taken (live) with Boris Khaikin but
he starts with considerable tensile venom and even rushes some
bars in the first movement, so intense is his performance. Rostropovich
recorded this work many times, but this live one holds a special
place in his discography, even if the Talich and the Boult are
the most solidly and musically recommendable.
Rostropovich never recorded the Elgar commercially, and the
reason given was invariably that he considered the performances
of it by his erstwhile student, Jacqueline du Pré, definitive.
In fact she and Barbirolli made that famous LP a month after
this concert performance. It’s something of a loss that
he never took it into the studio, as he clearly brought an insightful
view to it. A couple of his live performances have fortunately
survived, and this reading is one of two with conductor Gennadi
Rozhdestvensky to have been issued. It’s a technically
adroit and in many ways convincing performance - not quicksilver,
but a touch more measured and musing. Vibrated intensely in
the first movement, the cellist is at his most quixotic, indeed
skittish, at points in the finale. The orchestral fabric is
more debatable, lacking a measure of grip. There is a degree
of tape hiss, as indeed there is on most of these broadcasts,
but it’s not worryingly intrusive.
For the Schumann he collaborates with Britten and the LSO at
the Aldeburgh Festival in a highly recommendable performance
which convinces at almost every turn. Maybe he lacks something
of the sheer elegance of Fournier in this work, but setting
that aside, the work’s wayward rhetoric is securely judged
by soloist and conductor.
In Haydn’s C major Concerto Rostropovich directs the LSO,
which sounds a bit flustered as a result. The cellist plays
with gusto and panache, and employs Britten’s cadenzas.
Ensemble just about survives at a couple of junctures. Saint-Saëns’
A minor Concerto is played with marvellous technique and rich
legato phrasing, though it’s slightly let down by Rozhdestvensky’s
inattentive accompaniment.
The Russian pieces are clearly going to be special, and so they
prove. Khachaturian’s Concerto Rhapsody is an excitingly
windy piece but this is its first Western performance and its
dedicatee plays it with the necessary clout. Intense melodic
phraseology marries virtuosic panache in this searing performance,
whatever one’s feelings about the work itself. George
Hurst does a thoroughly estimable job with the LSO. Shostakovich’s
Second Concerto is with the LSO and Colin Davis. This too is
an outstanding, remarkably powerful reading. The BBC Orchestra
holds up well, the brass survives the pressure and little pockets
of lyricism are plundered avidly. This, again, is the Western
European premiere, and is one of the very best prizes in this
set of three discs. Tchaikovsky is represented by the Rococo
variations in the Fitzhagen arrangement - again with Davis
- and the Pezzo capriccioso in a sizzling performance.
If you missed the single discs, then now is the chance to acquire
all three at that reduced price. The performances certainly
justify the acquisition.
Jonathan Woolf
Track-listing
CD 1
Aram KHACHATURIAN (1903-1978)
Concerto-Rhapsody for Cello in D minor (1963)
London Symphony Orchestra/George Hurst
Royal Festival Hall, London, 21 December 1963
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906- 1975)
Cello Concerto No.2 Op.126 (1966)
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis
Royal Festival Hall, London, 5 October 1966
Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra, Op. 33
(1876)
London Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis
Royal Albert Hall, London, 30 June 1964
BBCL 4073-2 [75:22]
CD 2
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Cello Concerto in A minor, Op.129 (1850)
London Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Britten
Aldeburgh Festival, Orford Church, 6 July 1961
Antonin DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 (1895)
USSR State Symphony Orchestra/Evgeny Svetlanov
Royal Albert Hall, London, 21 August 1968
Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
Pezzo Capriccioso for cello and orchestra, Op. 62 (1887)
English Chamber Orchestra/Benjamin Britten
Aldeburgh Festival, Maltings, Snape, 16 June 1968
BBCL 4110-2 [71:02]
CD 3
Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)
Cello Concerto in C major, Hob. VIIb:1 (c.1765)
London Symphony Orchestra
Royal Festival Hall, London, 1 July 1965
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 (1872)
London Symphony Orchestra/Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Royal Festival Hall, London, 7 July 1965
Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 (1918)
London Symphony Orchestra/Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Royal Festival Hall, London, 5 July 1965
BBCL 4198-2 [67:35]
Masterwork Index: Shostakovich concertos ~~ Dvorak
concerto ~~ Elgar
concerto
BBC LEGENDS BBCL 5005-2 [3 CDs: 75:22 + 71:02 + 67:35] 