AVAILABILITY
I received my copy
of this disc through De Rode Pomp in
Gent (www.rodepomp.be
; e-mail rodepomp@pandora.be
), but information concerning this and
other Northern Flowers releases may
be found in www.nflowers.ru
(e-mail flowers@nflowers.ru
).
The present release
perfectly complements the recent Hyperion
disc (CDA 67413) reviewed
recently here . It offers three
more Tchaikovsky pieces, the Chamber
Symphony being the only work
common to both discs.
The four works here
span some twenty-five years of Tchaikovsky’s
composing life. The short Clarinet
Concerto of 1957, more a concertino,
was composed at about the same time
as the Sinfonietta for Strings.
It might be labelled ‘Neo-classical’,
because of its easy-going nature, its
melodic character and its colourful,
piquant scoring. I was often reminded
of Malcolm Arnold, Philip Lane and David
Lyon as well as of Shostakovich in his
lighter mood. This is a delightful,
unpretentious piece of charm and great
fun. I wonder why it is not heard more
often, for it is a modest, but real
winner.
As I mentioned in my
review of the Hyperion disc, the Chamber
Symphony is more a suite of
orchestral etudes than a miniature symphony.
It is in six hugely contrasted movements
ending with a deceptively simple Serenade.
However, the many harmonic surprises
in this attractive score belie the Neo-classical
label that one might be tempted to stick
on Tchaikovsky’s mature music, defying
any all-too-easy classification.
The magnificent cantata
Signs of the Zodiac is
still more personal, and reflects the
composer’s more serious concerns. Shostakovich’s
shadow looms large over this dramatic
and tragic work setting sombre texts
by Tyutchev, Alexander Blok and Tsvetaeva.
It ends with a quite different text
by Zabolotsky (Signs of the Zodiac)
which the composer sets as a nursery
rhyme, by turns funny and frightening,
with some typically Russian black humour
as well as a good deal of understatement
leaving many questions unanswered. In
spite of such apparently disparate literary
sources, Tchaikovsky achieves coherence,
from the orchestral introduction onwards.
The first three settings (Silentium!,
Far Out and Cross o’Four Roads)
are generally darker in mood, disillusioned
and with a touch of wry humour also
found in the poems. The concluding setting
is completely at odds with what has
been heard before, although the text
reflects on the same topics, but expressed
in a superficially lighter manner. This
magnificent work, the real gem here,
has much in common with Shostakovich’s
dark and desolate Fourteenth Symphony,
although Tchaikovsky’s music is less
single-mindedly pessimistic than Shostakovich’s.
I am in no doubt about it, though: this
wonderful piece is a minor masterpiece.
One might think that
Tchaikovsky, like several of his contemporaries,
chose easy ways out in order not to
confront the artistic dictates of the
Stalin years and after. Nevertheless
he, too, sometimes ventured onto dangerous
ground. In 1965, he composed a song
cycle Four Poems of Joseph Brodsky
for voice and piano. Brodsky’s name
was anathema to the régime of
the time; his work was banned for "social
parasitism" (whatever this may
mean). As a result, Tchaikovsky kept
his settings to himself, and re-arranged
them for chamber orchestra as Four
Preludes. I do not know in how
far the orchestral version relates –
if at all – to the original vocal settings.
What is quite clear, is that the music
had by 1984 acquired more harmonic stringency
and a biting dissonance. The Four
Preludes perfectly stand on
their own as ‘abstract’ music.
Serov, who conducted
the first performance of Signs
of the Zodiac, conducts vital
and committed readings of these fine
and at times intriguing works. The recorded
sound, though less refined than on the
Hyperion disc, is quite fine, though
in no way outstanding. Curiously enough,
the 1978 recording of the cantata sounds,
if anything, much better than the more
recent recordings. Both soloists are
excellent. Miroshnikova’s committed
singing in the cantata is superbly confident
and, as a result, completely convincing;
whereas Feodorov obviously enjoys the
jollity and fancy displayed in the Clarinet
Concerto.
Both this and the Hyperion
disc are warmly recommended. They shed
interesting light on a much neglected,
but distinguished composer whose achievement
is worth considering and deserves wider
exposure.
Hubert Culot
Margarita Miroshnikova (soprano)a;
Adil Feodorov (clarinet)b 
