Select a month

Back to The Archives

percussive Archive

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 – NY Philharmonic/ Leonard Bernstein (Columbia LP, 1966) – Speakers Corner vinyl

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 – NY Philharmonic/ Leonard Bernstein (Columbia LP, 1966) – Speakers Corner vinyl

by | Nov 29, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

A great remastering of a truly excellent work and performance. SERGEI PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 – NY Philharmonic/ Leonard Bernstein (Columbia LP, 1966, MS 7005) – Speakers Corner vinyl (2016) *****: The Fifth is probably the most-performed of the seven symphonies penned by Prokofiev for its many lovely melodies and its development work being of a nature that makes it more immediately accessible to the unsophisticated listener. I’m thoroughly familiar with the symphony because in the university I played the bass drum in a performance of it, and there is plenty of bass drum here – especially in the concluding movement. Somehow after Prokofiev moved back to the Soviet Union in 1933, he failed to have the many problems with the party which his colleague Shostakovich had. He somehow toed the party line and became highly privileged. In this symphony he had a general air of cheerfulness, and saw it as a “hymn to free and happy Man.” This is especially noted in the theme heard on the clarinet in the second movement. The first movement is full of orchestral radiance and a host of great melodies. In this symphony, Prokofiev wanted to get away from the idea most listeners had […]

LISZT: Transcendental Etudes – Kirill Gerstein, p. – Myrios Classics

LISZT: Transcendental Etudes – Kirill Gerstein, p. – Myrios Classics

by | Nov 9, 2016 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

Pianist Kirill Gerstein and producer Stephan Cahen deliver a titanic rendition of the Liszt magnum opus. LISZT: Transcendental Etudes, S. 139 – Kirill Gerstein, p. – Myrios Classics multichannel SACD MYR019, 64:00 (9/9/16) *****: The genesis for Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes extends backwards in time to the composer’s thirteenth year (1824), when he planned to compete with J.S. Bach to conceive cycles of etudes in all the keys of the chromatic scale, major and minor. Liszt returned to the scheme in 1826, but he finally published his set of 12 in 1838. In his review of the 1838 version, Robert Schumann called the études “studies in storm and dread for, at the most, ten or twelve players in the world.” In 1852 Liszt prepared another edition – somewhat toned down in bravura and technical brilliance – and this version bore the title Études d’exécution transcendante. Kirill Gerstein (b. 1979) has recorded (December 2015) the Liszt Etudes with a declared intention of illuminating both their technical and spiritual notions of transcendence. Performing on a Steinway & Sons D-274, Gerstein manages a ravishing and percussive tonal palette. We might proceed directly to his realization of Etude No. 6 Vision, to appreciate what diversity […]

Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony

Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony

by | May 29, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

A personal recital devoted to the art of keyboard coloration marks this Buniatishvili program from 2015. Kaleidoscope = MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition; RAVEL: La Valse; STRAVINSKY: Three Movements from Petrushka – Khatia Buniatishvili, p. – Sony 88875170032, 57:00 (3/11/16) ****:
 If slinky dresses and a Hedy Lamarr persona guarantee a virtuoso piano keyboardist, Khatia Buniatishvili has it made. Certainly, she possesses the fingers for this particular program (rec. 23-26 August 2015), which she chooses to approach from a personal, salon perspective. The Mussorgsky’s opening Promenade announces her introspective intentions, to explore the Hartmann visual panorama in musical terms that define Mussorgsky’s love for his departed friend. Rubato and graduated pedaling define the opening Promenade, while the succeeding grotesquerie, Gnomus, receives a fiercely percussive patina. The Old Castle intones its ancient bells slowly in the left hand, and for some, in too funereal a spirit, one close to Ravel’s hanged figure in Le Gibet. Disputatious children pick up the tempo in the Tuileries, Buniatishvili’s brisk articulation decidedly less mannered. The ox-cart Bydlo marches in, its plodding tempo one step away from having become the Dies Irae, since for Buniatishvili, a way of life passes away forever. The chicks from “Trilby” […]