Notes and Editorial Reviews
Rozhdestvensky’s career has been prodigiously busy - not least in the recording studio. The second half of the 1980s saw him just as active for recording labels. These three discs - only available separately - represent the second time from that period that he turned to the three last-numbered Tchaikovsky symphonies. This is the first time they have been issued outside the Russian Republic. The other cycle you will know was first issued by IMP Pickwick and was taken down in London in 1987 with that most authentically Russian-sounding of non-Russian orchestras, the LSO. That trio of discs remains a stunningly good choice.
This
Fourth is kinetically magnificent with the conductor paying special attention to the telling
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use of finely judged acceleration. It benefits from Russian wind and a towering passion that in the first and last movements has the brass phalanx taking voluptuous rage close to tragic rupture. The
Andantino is rushed - as it was with the LSO - but the sprinting pizzicato third movement works well even if it does test the piccolo player. This is not as visceral as Mravinsky’s classic London-recorded 1960 stereo version; then again neither is it as mad-eyed manic. The
Fifth goes with a doe-eyed lilt, with an indomitable gait and with fiery inspiration in the finale which I had to replay immediately. While it knows drama it is not quite as volcanic as Mravinsky’s Leningrad Fifth (DG, recorded in London in 1960) nor overall is it as satisfying as the gloriously sculpted Monteux/LSO version on Vanguard. The
Sixth is outright superb with a warm and close recording of the woodwind detailing of the first movement. This is diluted by a pulling back on the controls for the louder sections but my this is blisteringly imaginative Tchaikovsky! Not once does Rozhdestvensky loosen his extraordinary grip. It’s even more effective than the Mravinsky-Leningrad.
Fedoseyev’s
Serenade for Strings glows, hums and cheers with no holds barred yet makes room for delicacy and the finest emotional topography - as in the quasi-Elgarian
Elegia (III). This is a nicely achieved recording and in the finale even the background
pizz can be heard without undue strain through the main melodic stratum.
These are vivid recordings from a gloriously purple tradition.
– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International, reviewing discs of the 4th, 5th & 6th Symphonies Read less
Works on This Recording
1.
Symphony no 4 in F minor, Op. 36 by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Conductor:
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Period: Romantic
Written: 1877-1878; Russia
Date of Recording: 1988
Venue: Large Studio, Moscow Radio
Length: 40 Minutes 10 Secs.
2.
Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48 by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Conductor:
Vladimir Fedoseyev
Period: Romantic
Written: 1880; Russia
Date of Recording: 1992
Venue: Large Studio, Moscow Radio
Length: 31 Minutes 41 Secs.
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