Overture; MUSSORGSKY: Dawn on the Moscow River; LIADOV: Baba Yaga, Op.
56; SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 54; GLAZOUNOV:
Raymonda: Act III Entr‚acte; WAGNER: Lohengrin, Act III Prelude; Ride
of the Valkyries; MOZART: Le Nozze di Figaro Overture; Symphony No. 39
in E-flat, K. 543; SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 7 in C, Op. 105; The Swan of
Tuonela; HINDEMITH: Die Harmonie der Welt; STRAVINSKY: Apollo; DEBUSSY:
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; BARTOK: Music for Strings,
Percussion, and Celesta; HONEGGER: Symphony No. 3 “Liturgique” –
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra/Evgeny Mravinsky
Scribendum SC 031 (4 CDs) 61:20; 69:02; 64:34; 68:11 (Distrib. Silver Oak)****:
Culled from Melodiya archives, this Scribendum collection provides
vivid testimony to the Leningrad Philharmonic’s orchestral discipline
and catholic taste of its autocratic leader Evgeny Marvinsky
(1903-1988). Much of this recorded repertoire appeared on DGG reissues
as well, so collectors may be purchasing this set for the few pieces of
unusual programming elided by DGG, such as the Apollon Musagete and Hindemith from 26 February 1965, the same date as Mravinsky inscribed the first of the Liadov performances of Baba Yaga and the repetition of the two Wagner selections he had already inscribed February 23. The opening Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla
21 February 1965 sets the tone for the entire set: brilliant, extremely
fast musical execution, absolute homogeneity of orchestral tone, and
fastidious attention to inner musical detail. Whether Mravsinky
inherited his technique and his penchant for iron clarity from Malko’s
conducting class or from having watched conductors like Mengelberg and
Oskar Fried remains a mystery; that Mravinsky maintained his standards
through sheer terror tactics perpetrated upon his players is no mystery.
Given Mravinsky’s stylistic sympathy for the Russians and for
Shostakovich in particular, it is refreshing and thrilling to hear
Mravinsky in works like Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
(28 February 1965), in which the relentless drive and heavy,
articulated pulsation ascribed to Bartok a militant, edgy, and feverish
aura we ascribe more easily to Kubelik and to Bernstein in their
respective performances of this music. The Debussy Prelude is
suddenly rife with even more colors than is its wont. The Sibelius
rises out of a single piece of granite and dissipates its solidity of
mass to achieve a grainy, ethereal melodic nimbus, like the rings of
Saturn, and just as detached. The cold objectivity Mravinsky elicits
could be Karajan, except that Mravinsky tolerates the rough edges. For
Stravinsky’s Apollo, this application works perfectly,
rendering the “white ballet” a poised, chiseled, suite of elegant
neoclassic design. Mravinsky’s Mozart, like his Wagner (23 February
1965), is tough and sinewy, although it is no less stylistic, with
lovely balances in strings and winds, a supple lilt in the Allegretto and Trio
of the E-flat Symphony. The Honegger Third (28 February 1965) is
surprisingly diaphanous and exalted in texture and in conception, and
Francophiles devoted only to Munch and Martinon in this music can glean
a few insights. All of the Russian repertory is bravura virtuoso
exhibition, its own paradigm of stylistic execution, which might care
to or dare to, imitate.
–Gary Lemco
