You simply cannot go
wrong with this collection. It’s a budget
price item with all the merits of a
premium production and with each disc
packed close to maximum playing time.
There are no printed texts for The
Bells but that’s the only compromise
made.
The project derives
from the Chandos’s finest years. Polyansky
leads well prepared and excitingly spontaneous-sounding
performances. Some of his Glazunov symphonies
- also on Chandos - troubled me because
of their tendency to linger and admire
the scenery. There’s little of that
excess here and yet he makes time and
space for the many tender romantic moments.
And it’s not all lush indulgence either:
in the finale of The Bells Polyansky
who is also the producer draws tactful
attention to the horror-struck moaning
massed horns at 7.10. The cavernously
resonant acoustic suits this music extremely
well and this is a conductor who goes
with Rachmaninoff’s romantic grain rather
than trying to wring out anything radically
different.
The many solo instrumental
strands in the Symphonic Dances are
caressed and romantically italicised;
unfailingly so. I was brought up on
Kondrashin’s EMI-Melodiya version which
is still extremely fine despite veteran
analogue sound from the early 1960s.
I have always been drawn to this work
because of its emphatic rhythmic drive,
the delirious troubadour role of the
solo saxophone and the laisser vibrer
tam-tam crash at the very end. Many
conductors – presumably fearful of vulgarity
- ignore the instruction. Kondrashin
follows Rachmaninoff’s instruction and
so does Polyansky. That crash here resonates
into silence over almost ten seconds
so no disappointment there. Polyansky
and his orchestra communicate both the
visceral rhythms of this music and an
unabashed immersion in sentiment. [see
also previous review]
Another feather in
the Brilliant-Chandos cap is the line-up
of solo voices in Polyansky’s The
Bells. Not one of the three voices
is anything less than dramatically splendid,
secure of tonal production yet otherwise
grandly Slav-toned. I would at least
have expected – feared – Olga Lutsiv-Ternovskaya
to have one of those patented soprano
wobbles that I suspect are inculcated
rather than a natural defect. Not a
bit of it; she is simply magnificent.
The same goes for Bomstein who is glorious
in The Silver Sleigh Bells. Pochapsky
is steady, gripping and poetic in The
Mournful Iron Bells finale. The
choir sounds big yet lacks nothing in
focus.
The second disc is
lower key with its mix of predominantly
early Rachmaninoff but there’s still
plenty to revel in. Take for example
the distinctly Borodin-Rimsky inflected
The Rock written at the age of
twenty. It will have instant appeal
if you like Balakirev Symphony 1, Rimsky’s
Sadko or Borodin Symphony 2.
This is Rachmaninoff in thrall to the
Kouchka. Prince Rostislav is
another early work from the composer’s
late teenage years and it is in much
the same style as The Rock with
lush yet nicely nuanced work from the
solo harp as well as some eruptively
wailing horns at 11:50 and 12:10. The
chirpy little Scherzo sounds like a
slightly Russianised Mendelssohn – it
ends in a charming little stagger and
a final rush. The Caprice bohémien
is from the same seam though there is
more Tchaikovsky in this mix than in
the other works and for me it is the
least engaging of the three early tone
poems. The Isle of the Dead is
a late work and here sounds sumptuous
but for some reason this version does
not plumb the inky depths as magnetically
as it can in other hands. It’s the only
slight weakness in the set.
This coupling will
suit very well anyone who has a passing
interest in Rachmaninoff and is curious
about exploring further. It would also
be good for anyone who knows the symphonies
perhaps through the Kondrashin, Svetlanov,
Previn or Ashkenazy collections or the
piano concertos and would like to know
what else there is. Newcomers to Rachmaninoff
who come to him from Tchaikovsky or
Rimsky or Borodin will find sufficiently
familiar landmarks to win them round.
It’s the sort of set that should convert
anyone into a Rachmaninoff enthusiast
in one fell swoop. Of course if you
prefer The Bells with some Prokofiev
then go for the recent Previn
EMI Gemini collection.
Rob Barnett
for details
Olga Lutsiv-Ternovskaya (soprano); Leonid
Bomstein (tenor); Vyacheslav Pochapsky
(bass) (op. 35) 
