Live in Moscow: Rachmaninov - The Bells

Sergei Rachmaninov

01 September 2010
0825646802555
1CD
Music Web International
This, the closing concert of the First International Rostropovich Festival, was apparently quite the event in Moscow. The program is imaginative and makes enjoyable listening. I suspect that its principal interest will be technical. I've heard many fine-sounding albums from Warner Classics and its feeder labels, but this one, at its best, achieves a pellucid, near-audiophile quality. In the lighter textures, each strand is crisply defined, yet there's plenty of air around the sound, a sense of space that's retained as the sonorities fill out. The most heavily scored passages don't quite maintain this high level, turning slightly opaque but they're still very good, just not special. Still, to get such an overall fine result in a concert recording is particularly remarkable.

The featured work, Rachmaninov's cantata The Bells, languished on discs through much of the stereo era, at least in the West, but enjoyed a resurgence in the 1970s, with studio recordings from Previn (EMI) and Ormandy (RCA) joining a Kondrashin (Melodiya) licensing in the Stateside catalogues. One forgets that Rachmaninov wrote vocal music, including three operas, but his use of a rich harmonic idiom, vivid colors, and pictorial effects - rather than big, juicy themes as in the piano concertos - to evoke the desired affect is also atypical of him. The music is always "melodic," but, once past the first movement's catchy theme, the tunes are not the point.

José Serebrier is expert at eliciting expression through sonority and color, and the engineers' clear, uncluttered definition of the textures is an asset. After an effective orchestral introduction - pealing horns and wintry woodwinds and strings setting the cheerful mood - the initial vocal entrances are awkward. Tenor Andrei Popov's opening "Slyshish" ("Listen") gets stuck in an odd half-croon, as if the entry caught him off-guard; this seems to unnerve the chorus, which rather jumps on its response. Once past this skittish start, however, this movement goes well, and Popov's clear tone, forthright address and dynamic delivery are ideal. The other two soloists are a trade-off, with Lyubov Petrova's gleaming lyric soprano, maintaining its vibrant clarity as it ascends, affording some compensation for baritone Sergei Leiferkus's impassioned but wobbly declamation. The guarded affirmation of the long orchestral coda is effectively rendered, rounding off the piece nicely.

The cantata is flanked by four shorter, contrasting works. The once rare, now seemingly ubiquitous Festive Overture always makes an effect - assuming the orchestra can play it in the first place - but Serebrier finds the through-line connecting the various episodes, so the piece sounds more coherent, and less repetitious, than usual.
Glazunov's lovely Chant du ménestrel has needed a new recording for some time, and this one fits the bill nicely. The cellist, Wen-Sinn Yang, has a bright, not overly nasal tone, though it doesn't expand on the A string in the Rostropovich manner (DG). But Serebrier, as is his wont, draws more nuance from the woodwinds in particular than Rostropovich's poker-faced maestro, Seiji Ozawa. The well-groomed but reserved version by David Geringas and Lawrence Foster (Eurodisc, LP) is also handily outclassed.

Serebrier rounds out the program with two transcriptions, perhaps as a homage to his mentor, Leopold Stokowski. The unfamiliar fourth act entr'acte from Khovanshchina works well; it's hard to know what exactly was Stokowski's contribution to this edition, but I suspect it includes the ominous low brasses that fill out the climax. Serebrier's own take on Rachmaninov's Vocalise sounds pretty standard at first, but it varies from, and sometimes thins out, the expected textures in subsequent paragraphs: the final statement of the theme is a delicate duet for clarinet and cello. The conductor's tender performance throws a few curve-balls along the way..


Editor's Choice
"This must be one of the finest performance of The Bells ever recorded. [This] enthralls from start to finish. José Serebrier secures choral and orchestral contributions of mesmerizing vividness and thrilling power to match: meanwhile the soloists (Lyubov Petrova, Andrei Popov and Sergei Leiferkus) all impress... Highly recommended."
Classic FM (January 2011)


"What's so consistently impressive about his account of the Rachmaninoff is its marrying of architectural surety and consistently fine vocal and instrumental contributions… The pacing of The Bells is notably successful…. The rest of the concert is equally desirable. It began with a sparkling performance of Shostakovich's Festive Overture, a compound here of brio, brilliance and surefooted musical good sense, and avoiding pot-boiling pitfalls. Glazunov's Chant du ménestrel, with cellist Wen-Sinn Yang, receives a warm and thoughtful reading, with fine wind statements into the bargain. We also have Stokowski's bold and powerful orchestration of the Entr'acte from Act IV of Mussorgsky's Khovanschina, the glistening power of which elicits a chorus of 'bravos' from the audience. And to close we have the conductor's own impressive orchestration of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise, written for, and unveiled at, the commemorative event…. The whole concert is a success from beginning to end - interpretatively, sonically and programmatically."
MusicWeb (December 2010)

"The bells toll to welcome a great new live recording from Moscow"
"A terrific performance, in which José Serebrier and the Russian National Orchestra identify those telling touches of instrumentation and detail that help make the score at once so poignant, so thrilling and so moving."
Gramophone magazine (October 2010)

"This fine disc captures José Serebrier at the helm of a variety of Russian works, several of which testify to his cultural lineage to Leopold Stokowski. Serebrier, himself a master colorist, opens with the 1954 Festive Overture of Shostakovich... Glazunov's Minstrel's Serenade makes a direct appeal to the memory of Mstislav Rostropovich, an ardent performer of this brief but tender work. The sweet sounds of Yang's cello play off against the orchestra's oboe for some elegiac sentiments... The last pages [of Rachmaninov's Bells] clearly achieve an illumination, an organ-tinted apotheosis to which the Russian audience responds fervently... Serebrier himself retouched the famous Vocalise of Rachmaninov as a string serenade...to achieve an extended flowing moment of elegiac bliss. A solo cello adds to the intimacy of the occasion."
Audiophile Audition (September 2010)

"... the excellence of the sound, recorded in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire."
"... Shostakovich's Festival Overture, ... receives a stunning account, exceptional for being so thoroughly musical, instead of being rattled off any old how. The instrumental phrasing is a constant joy, revealing this work to have rather subtler qualities than we almost always hear."
"Glazunov's Chant du ménéstrel for cello and orchestra ... is a delightful work of no great pretence which receives at the hands of the very gifted young cellist Wen-Sinn Yang an ideal performance, winningly lyrical and ideally balanced with the orchestra."
Rachmaninov The Bells: "Serebrier directs a deeply impressive account of this masterwork ... choice of tempos is absolutely ideal and the music unfolds naturally and expressively. This is a very fine performance indeed, and the result should be heard by all admirers of this composer."
International Record Review (October 2010)

One of the best of modern ensembles, the Russian National Orchestra, under the baton of the Uruguayan-born conductor José Serebrier, delivers an exemplary concert performance of Rachmaninov's lively Choral Symphony Op.35, "The Bells" with the Moscow State Chamber choir. Also on the program are works by Glazunov, Shostakovich and Mussorgsky, as well as more Rachmaninov. The proceedings are captured in a sparkling, vivid live recording made at the closing concert of the 1st Rostropovich International Festival in the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire of Music. The soloists--Lyubov Petrova (soprano), Andrei Popov (tenor), Sergei Leiferkus (baritone) & Wen-Sinn Yang (cello)--are all outstanding, each bringing immediacy and personality to their individual performances. I was stirred by the rousing version of Shostakovich's Festive Overture, Op. 96, and charmed by the cello solo in the lovely rendition of Rachmaninov's classic "Vocalise". This is a concert album of uncommon beauty and finesse, and highly recommended.
Amazon review
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See the Russian National Orchestra's web site

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YouTube videos of the live concert in Moscow last April:
Sergei Rachmaninov : Choral Symphony "The Bells" Op.35
Recorded in the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatory
I Allegro ma non tanto
II Lento
IV Lento lugubre

Audio

Live in Moscow: Rachmaninov - The Bells


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