MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
Plain text for smartphones & printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 


Support us financially by purchasing this disc from
Nicholas RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908)
Scheherazade, Op.35 [45.56]
The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh (1905): excerpts [12.11]*
St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov
rec. Great Philharmonic Hall, St Petersburg, March 2011 and October 2009*
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD 320 [58.10]


 
Once upon a time - this is a fairy story, after all - there was a symphonic suite called Scheherazade which formed a basic showpiece in the repertory of every international orchestra. They all recorded it and they all performed it. Nowadays it seems to have fallen on hard times, in the concert hall at least, but it still makes a very respectable showing on disc – there are 137 versions currently listed on Archiv – and it still remains a real technical tour de force for orchestras around the world. The St Petersburg players have this music saturated into the very marrow of their bones, and this performance clearly demonstrates that fact. Time and time again there are felicities of phrasing and expression which make listeners prick up their ears. Temirkanov indulges himself with rubato in every phrase that will stand it - to often beautiful effect. The players are with him to a man. At the same time he knows precisely when to get out of the way and let the individual instrumentalists have their heads. The internal balances within the orchestra are perfect with a natural instinct that can only come from intimate acquaintance with every facet of the work. The recorded balance, set slightly back in a resonant hall, is natural without any hint of spotlighting.
 
In fact one could have done with a marginal amount of spotlighting from the microphone on the solo violin. Its figurations sometimes disappear beneath the accompaniment in a manner which would be expected in the concert hall – where the physical presence of the soloist would lend him or her prominence – but which needs slight assistance in a purely audio production. In fact the violin soloist is stinted even more in the presentation, which nowhere discloses his or her identity: grossly unfair given this beautifully expressive performance. It is not until the end of the last movement, when audience applause suddenly erupts, that one is even aware that this is a recording of a concert performance. This makes the sheer technical perfection throughout all the more admirable.
 
Scheherazade is preceded by another Rimsky-Korsakov showpiece in the shape of three movements from his opera The invisible city of Kitezh. You will note the ominous phrase “three movements”. For some totally inexplicable reason the fourth movement of the orchestral suite is missing here. The result is that the music tails away unconvincingly at the end of a rousing performance of the Battle of Kershenets movement with its galloping Tartar horsemen. This then leads, with rather a short pause, straight into the opening of Scheherazade. This is even more regrettable because what we do have here is superbly well done, with the opening Paean to the Wilderness phrased with real affection and feeling. This quite transforms this already very beautiful music. What on earth happened to the last movement? There would have been plenty of room for it on the disc.
 
So only modified rapture, then – but nonetheless this Scheherazade is absolutely marvellous, one of the best available. If you think you have heard the score so often that it has become jaded, this is a recordingto make you think again. Temirkanov holds the symphonic form together – with the theme of the Sultan transforming into that of Sinbad with a real appreciation of the sheer technical expertise that Rimsky-Korsakov brought to this marvellous score.
 
Paul Corfield Godfrey