Notes and Editorial Reviews
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
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MUSSORGSKY-RAVEL
Pictures at an Exhibition
•
Mariss Jansons, cond; Royal Concertgebouw O
•
RCO LIVE 09004 (SACD: 33:02) Live: Amsterdam 5/22-23/2008
Does the world really need another
Pictures?
Hardly, but it can always
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make room for one if this kind of quality and individuality are on offer.
This
Pictures
is notable for the way it sings, with a darkly glittering translucence no matter what the dynamic level (even the
fff
climax in “Bydlo”). The orchestral sound is characterized by rounded edges to the most massive
ff
—an absence of “click” to the attack reminiscent of Karajan (one of Jansons’s mentors, of course, whose own most characterful, if not tidiest,
Pictures
is perhaps to be found in the 1955–56 Philharmonia version for EMI) and Celibidache (Stuttgart Radio, 1976/DG, not the glacial Munich version on EMI). There is a silken beauty of articulation, even in the most traditionally brittle passages (e.g., “Hut on Fowl’s Legs”), and a liquid transparency at the loudest volume (“Great Gate of Kiev”). Indeed, one has the impression that Jansons could take his
ff,
call it
p
and crescendo again from that starting point. While some listeners may miss the bite of more traditional conceptions (where’s the
feroce
in “Hut on Fowl’s Legs”?), there is ample compensation in the distinctively Russian character of Jansons’s sculpted legato treatment—but as an operatic
cantabile
rather than the sharply picaresque quality of (say) Markevitch (BPO, 1953/DG). Throughout, he molds that distinctive Concertgebouw sound—both nasal and velvety—to this purpose to great effect: in the songfully inflected “Promenades,” individually characterized with unusual thoughtfulness and inflectional nuance; or in “The Old Castle,” where volatile dynamic shadings are reinforced by some spontaneous-sounding accelerandi—an unusually dramatic treatment, for all the ultra-refinement of execution. The
scherzando
portions of the score—“Tuileries” in particular—are similarly played with greater rhythmic flexibility than usual. I don’t have Jansons’s previous recording (Oslo PO, EMI) for comparison, but the Norwegian orchestra was never in this league.
Some departures from Ravel’s orchestration will raise eyebrows: in “Goldenberg and Schmuyle,” extra octave doublings in the bass, and added percussion; added percussion in “Catacombs” too (evidently a Russian tradition—Golovanov makes the same additions in his 1947 Moscow Radio recording, CD on Lys). “Gnomus” features a peculiar rhythmic alteration, lengthening the first note of the short-long pattern in the woodwind motive; and in the middle section of “Hut on Fowl’s Legs” (Andante mosso), the flutes play rapid tremolo thirds in place of the usual measured sextuplets.
The recording is taken from concerts three months apart, the audience never in evidence until their applause at the end. As often, SACD (stereo) removes a slight edge to the CD layer, and opens up more sense of the hall’s space (I can’t comment on surround sound as I don’t have that capability). One obvious reservation concerns the disc’s short measure, but it seems to be offered at half the label’s usual price. Well worth your viewing, no matter how many
Pictures
already adorn your listening-room walls.
FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy
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Works on This Recording
1.
Pictures at an Exhibition for Orchestra (orchestrated by Ravel) by Modest Mussorgsky
Conductor:
Mariss Jansons
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1874/1922; Russia
Venue: Concertgebouw Amsterdam
Length: 30 Minutes 14 Secs.
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