BBC Legends BBCL 4233-2, 68:46 (Distrib. Koch) ****:
Gennady Rozhdestvensky (b. 1931) of the Bolshoi came to the BBC in 1978, after the untimely death of Rudolf Kempe. Sporting a massive repertory and formidable stick technique, Rozhdestevensky often eschewed long rehearsals–or any rehearsals–of pieces he already knew well and which he felt the BBC Symphony had under its fingers. The first of the concerts in this stunningly vivid album derives from Royal Albert Hall (31 August 1979), in his first season as Music Director. Adopting a slightly more marcato approach to the nationalistic colors of Rimsky-Korsakov than, say, Stokowski, Rozhdestvensky’s broad pacing and loving care over the woodwind and horn doxologies proves little short of deliberate and sensational. The vibrant and ecstatic surges of string and brass hymns, alternating with lulls and leaps of martial energies, inexorably mounts a frenzied canvas, interrupted only by the trombone recitative from within the church that unleashes a renewed torrent of devotions. By the last chord, the Royal Albert Hall audience is already in paroxysms of pleasure.
Rachmaninov’s D Minor Symphony performance took place a week earlier (23 August 1979), and the hugely convulsive gestures in the work–already the composer was into his obsession with the Dies Irae of the Requiem Mass–find in Rozhdestvensky a thoroughly sympathetic reader, given that the Op. 13 has remained a bete noir ever since its 19th Century premier. The music seems cut from one singular cloth, almost monothematic; yet Rachmaninov manages to infuse his own “fate” symphony with diverse affects to which the BBC players can respond with driven colors. Both the Larghetto and the monumental finale, Allegro con fuoco, emanate as much nostalgia as they do panoramic militancy. The lonely oboe solo in the last movement over plucked strings heralds more agitations from horns and strings over a huge pedal point. As Russian-sounding as it explosive, the symphony heaves and sighs in colossal waves, the BBC battery pounding their instruments with abandon. The extended, melancholy coda ushers in the Apocalypse or Mahler’s finales, whichever comes to mind first.
Prokofiev’s Ode to the End of the War makes a rare appearance in concert (11 October 1978) early in Rozhdestvensky’s tenure with the BBC. Scored for a stringless orchestra–except for double basses–four pianos, eight harps, saxophone and additional tuba, the piece bristles with a slashing, Stravinskian irony and percussive energy. We can hear echoes of both the Fifth Symphony and the “iron” music, Le Pas d’acier and Scythian Suite. Halfway through its thirteen-minute duration, the music acquires a softer, strumming quality, from which a limping folksong emerges, which soon acquires the grudging lyricism we hear in Cinderella and the Seventh Symphony. Drums and trumpets return, however, in fairly insistent riffs, along with the percussive use of the keyboards, a kind of wide-eyed victory march. A regular brass and percussion orgy ends this concert curio, which elicited glowing applause from an audience beguiled by their conductor’s audacity.
— Gary Lemco
