"I love Russian music" thread

[eschiss1]

Oddly, I've heard Manfred several times but not yet I think his much more sung All-Night Vigil eg... time to do something about that- tonight even maybe.

[adriano]

I should have specified that I love the "Manfred Symphony" not for its music di per se, but for its masterful counterpoint and instrumentation. Such pieces are also worthy to be carried over to the desert island :-)
Tchaikovsky is now on the brilliant "instrumentation level" of his 2nd and 3rd orchestral Suites. As far as the written program with musical scheme supplied him by Balakirev, he did not follow the proposed key signatures - and he even excused himself for not having done so.
Funny enough, being inspired by "Harold en Italie", in my opinion, the same attributes of being musically of minor value also apply to Berlioz's piece ... "Manfred" is, of course, more interesting, more "modern" and full of "daring" and "experimental" harmonies/chords. The most picturesque, but also the most "easy to hear" movement of "Manfred" is the third. When I first heard it (on the Markevitch LP), I was disappoined, but today I see more values. It is build-up in a quite interesting way, using 7 different keys...
The "daemonic atmosphere" in the 4th movement has a more plausible "references" than the orgy in Berlioz "Harold": the finale of his "Symphonie Fantastique", but one could perhaps also refer to Liszt's "Faust Symphonie" or to his (Tchaikovsky's) own "Francesca da Rimini", written 12 years earlier.
Incidentally, Tchaikovsky also knew and appreciated Schumann's "Manfred" - which I still considers an "unsung" piece.

[adriano]

Now (at last) to the Rozhdestvensky recording of "Manfred Symphony". This is a real discovery. In my opinion it is the best Russian conductor-Russian orchestra recorded version, with no comparison to both Svetlanov versions. We have now a lot of sensitivity, sense for compactness, contrasts, colour and dramatism. The 4th movement has ideal tempi. It's a real pleasure to listen to this 1989 recording, re-issued by the "alto" label.
There are two negative points:
1) The sound is not ideal, but still very acceptable and much better than in the first Svetlanov recording. The orchestra should be more present and with less reverb.
2) "Manfred" is coupled with a recording of Tchaikovsky's Overture in C minor conducted by Sergei Skripka. I consider this a profanation. But I am a burned child as far as Maestro Skripka is concerned (see my article "too obscure" in the chapter "sceial features" of my website).

[eschiss1]

Somehow the name suggests "Conducted by Violin"...

[adriano]

Right, eschiss1 - and when I personally met him in 1994, his strings screeched at me hysterically. He made, actually, some intersting recordings (including Shebalin's 2nd and 4th Symphony), and recorded a lot of soundtracks with his Cinema Orchestra. He was (or still is) chief of the Moscow Cinema Museum (which, thanks to him, I was forbidden to visit).
Skripka is a quite common name. As an insturment, it is a particular Azerbajani fiddle with 4 strings tuned in fifths.

[eschiss1]

I have heard his recordings of those two symphonies- I'd forgotten. Sympathies re museum.

... does that mean kvartet ...2  skripki etc are actually not for the usual stringed instruments? I thought I was just joking...

[adriano]

I was joking too, eschiss1 :-)
All violins have 4 strings tuned in fifths, and a Russian violin is indeed a skripka - but also a cheaper fiddle - er even a synthesizer. So I preferred to associate that conductor with the latter two, using in here the Adzerbajani or Uzbek version (more correctly spelled "skrjpka", if I am not wrong), but written in a non-cyrillic alphabet...
Incidentally, Skripka's recording of Tchaikovsky's 7th (E flat) Symphony ("reconstructed" by Semyon Bogatyryev) was promoted in Russia as "A Life's Symphony" and as a world premier recording - many years after Ormandy's version of 1962! I think even Järvi's 1994 version came before Skripka's (which is the worst version, considering Kitaenko's magnificent new one of 2015).