It's quite a few years
now since the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Russian artists make regular and plentiful
contact with the outside world - sometimes
they seem practically to dominate New
York's Metropolitan Opera! - so that
Russian styles of playing and singing
are, for better and for worse, coming
increasingly to resemble those elsewhere.
Apparently, however, no one's told the
Russian engineers, who continue to record
relatively close to the orchestra, spotlighting
individual instruments on solo mikes.
Essentially, they're applying analog
techniques to digital equipment!
Thus, while the opening
of this Sorcerer's Apprentice
is suitably soft, the close pickup tends
to dissipate the mysterious atmosphere
- the clarinet phrases would be more
effective at a bit of a distance. When
the main theme arrives, the bassoon
moves front and center for its solo.
It was a kind of nostalgia trip for
me, recalling the sound of Melodiya
LPs; other listeners might find the
dial-twirling annoying. Jordania's performance
as such is fine, if not terribly subtle,
with the final tutti cadence
a bit of a scramble.
In Franck's introduction,
the transitions are bumpy, and even
idle listening catches a surprising
number of splices - perhaps the sustained
writing posed problems for the orchestra.
Things pick up, figuratively and literally,
at the Allegro: the tempi are
brisk, in the modern manner - the development
fairly hurtles along, and even the tutti
canonic recap steps lively "in two"
- yet the style is old-fashioned and
portentous. The Allegretto is
graceful if not quite elegant; here
and there, the triplets are too rigidly
fitted into the beat. Jordania again
sets a good pace for the finale - no
faster than most, though the players
occasionally sound hard-pressed - but
in the first part of the movement he
seems not to have thought structural
matters through. He leaves the transition
into the second theme to fend for itself
- which it can't, quite - and, after
that theme, the following episode arrives
unceremoniously - no setup, nothing.
There are some good moments and details
later: the big tutti recap at
5:23 is suitably triumphant, and Jordania
plays up the agitation at 6:35 by stressing
the violin figures, rather than the
sustained winds outlining them.
The orchestrated versions
of the two Ravel piano pieces are delicate
and bittersweet. The Prélude,
arranged for strings and harp, unexpectedly
recalls early Debussy (and not just
the Danses sacrée et profane);
the Menuet, adding woodwinds
and horn, echoes that from Ravel's own
Le tombeau de Couperin. The Daphnis
suite may just be the best performance
on the disc, a few passing misco-ordinations
aside. Daybreak unfolds with
breadth, and here the players seem to
relish the sustained writing; the flute
playing in the extended Pantomime
is shapely, with just enough edge to
the timbre. The Danse génèrale,
vigorous and propulsive, never turns
heady and Dionysian, but it's capably
discharged.
My occasional strictures
about ensemble notwithstanding, the
orchestra actually sounds rather good.
The solid, unified strings betray none
of the seediness heard from, say, the
lower-tier Russian and Central Asian
ensembles on Excelsior issues, while
reeds and brass are firm and clear -
no watery horns, pressured trumpets,
or Donald Duck oboes. The tuttis,
however, turn congested whenever the
rolling percussion get going - a problem
digital recording was supposed to eliminate,
though it in fact rarely occurred in
analog sources.
Stephen Francis
Vasta
Russian Federal Orchestra/Vakhtang Jordania
