In the 90s the RCA Red Seal label started a series with recordings of the "Russian 5" conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov. In terms of unsung compositions the most interesting CD was the Mussorgsky album. I think only Borodin, Rimsky-Korssakov and Mussorgsky were released back then and the series stopped. Is it kown if albums with music by Balakirev and Cui were planned? These two composers could be seen in the logo on the CD covers. A Cui release could have been very interesting. I suppose Svetlanov never recorded music by him.
(https://abload.de/img/0b26ijkl.jpg)
on YouTube there is a Cui piece of his Orchestral Suite No. 4. Very Russian sounding!
and if his 2nd quartet (see IMSLP) is representative of his chamber work, I wouldn't at all mind hearing more. (One of the other two was recorded quite awhile back, I know.) Some (most - almost all-, I imagine) composers were better in some genres and some media than others.
There was perhaps no need for another Balakirev recording on RCA in the mid 90s. Svetlanov had just released an album of Balakirev's symphonies and other symphonic works on Hyperion in 1992.
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDD22030
I've had that Hyperion set forever. It's quite good.
I think the precious little gem we are talking about is the Cui orchestral suites arranged by Glazunov. I had forgotten that I had this until I realized it ended up in the dumpster with my other CD's. For now I must be content with YouTube.
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7999488--cui-orchestral-suites-nos-2-4
How would people rank the Five I wonder?
For me it would be:
1. Rimsky-Korsakov - the colour (listening to his music is like listening to a kaleidoscope, if that were possible) and the range (opera, symphonic, chamber, solo, choral...). And not to mention his influence over the generation of composers below him (how often do you read "pupil of R-K").
2. Mussorgsky - touches emotional depths like no other. (Though remember that often the colour is provided by R-K, see above!).
3. Borodin - a smaller output but usually impressive.
4. Balakirev - I find very enjoyable while I am listening to his music, but it's not at all hummable, I never walk away with it still playing in my head.
5. Cui - ten out of ten for effort...
Rimsky's always been my favourite. His operas are top class. He is loved and fawned over in his homeland for that very reason. But the west just shrugs their shoulders as far as that's concerned and know him best for a couple of showpieces for orchestra. Richard Taraskin calls him the most underrated composer of all time.(no doubt someone's going to disagree with this) :)
Ok, let's keep this thread on topic, please - i.e. the RCA Red Seal 'Russian 5' series of recordings conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov, not a general discussion of the merits or otherwise of the composers involved.
Would it help if the thread was renamed accordingly?
No. And please remember: this isn't a general music discussion forum. We discuss unsung music by great composers here. In this thread that means unsung compositions recorded by Svetlanov in the RCA 'Russian 5' series. Should be enough scope for debate, surely...
Fair enough.
You are, of course, perfectly entitled to start a different thread about other unsung music by The Mighty Handful. But please: no rankings and no lists!
Here are the pieces recorded for the Mussorgsky album. The most impressive one in terms of unsung compositions. I think all have been recorded by Svetlanov before. The most popular piece is obviously the Gopak from "Sorochinsky Fair", here in the orchestra only version.
1. Scherzo in B-flat orch. Rimsky
2. Intermezzo in modo classico orch. Rimsky
3. Solemn March form Khovanshchina (recorded by Abbado as Triumphal March: The Capture of Kars)
4. Introduction and Polsky from Boris Godunov orch. Rimsky
5. Entr'acte from Khovanshchina
6. Dance of the Persian Woman from Khovanshchina
7. Overture to Sorochinsky Fair orch. Liadov
8. Gopak from Sorochinsky Fair orch. Liadov
9. Parassia's Dumka from Sorochinsky Fair
10-15 Without the Sun orch. Svetlanov
with Nathalia Gerasimova, soprano
I enjoy this disc very much. The Borodin and Rimsky symphonies recorded for the series are really hit and miss. I like Sevtlanov's earlier recordings of this pieces much better. More verve and gusto!
I wonder what Svetlanov would have chosen for a Cui album. The closest we will ever see of such a production is possibly the wonderful Polyansky album on Chandos!
And another thought, Svetlanov should really have recorded a complete version of Mussorgsky's wonderful Sorochinsky Fair.
Quote from: chriss on Thursday 06 August 2020, 15:53
I wonder what Svetlanov would have chosen for a Cui album. The closest we will ever see of such a production is possibly the wonderful Polyansky album on Chandos!
And another thought, Svetlanov should really have recorded a complete version of Mussorgsky wonderful Sorochinsky Fair.
My Cui "wish" would be for a CD of the overtures to his operas (those that have them) and any other orchestral music from them (intermessi, entractes, etc). A few of them do exist in electronic MIDI form (I've posted about them on this forum, with links) and sound like they good be good dramatic pieces of music, so I wonder if opera inspired Cui with the drama needed to inject colour and life into his music that I find lacking in his other orchestral music.
If there was to be a Vol.2 of the "Russian Five" series, or a successor issue, and they wished to explore the unsung music of the Five, that's a line they could follow.
(Cui's operas:
Prisoner of the Caucasus (1858)
The Mandarin's Son (1859)
William Ratcliff (1869)
Mlada (Act I, 1872)
Angelo (1876)
Le flibustier (1894)
The Saracen (1899)
Feast in Time of Plague (1901)
Mademoiselle Fifi (1903)
The Snow Bogatyr (1906)
Mateo Falcone (1907)
The Captain's Daughter (1911)
Little Red Riding Hood (1911)
Ivan the Fool (1913)
Puss in Boots (1915) )
You know, that's a good idea for a recording project. What little of Cui's music I know isn't all that impressive or even Russian sounding. The operas are likely forgotten for good reason. But the overtures? Interesting idea. But - are there overtures? I've played through Little Red Riding Hood and it had a short introduction. Ivan the Terrible is the same. Unfortunately, on IMSLP we can only see vocal scores. Are there overtures in the orchestral scores?
"The Snow Bogatyr" has an overture in the published vocal score (5 pages); Angelo has a briefer one; both round off rather than having to have concert endings written for them, it looks like. The prelude to Le Flibustier of course has already been recorded, as you know, on a Marco Polo CD, but you'll have already taken it into account in judging his operas.
I think we simply have to accept that Cui was not a particularly gifted composer, and I do not see much of a point in exploring his output on a systematical basis. My guess is that Svetlanov most probably have thought similarly, which is why he omitted Cui's music from his otherwise extensive recording activities. Cui's best works are said to be found in his art songs (at least is that what most sources claim – I don't know them and I am not even particularly interested in songs). As for the lack of Russian sound in his music, however, the following quote certainly explains a lot. It is taken from a letter to Felipe Pedrell written in French:
"Un sujet russe d'opéra m'irait pas du tout. Bien que russe, je suis d'origine mi-française, mi-lithuanienne et je n'ai pas le sens de la musique russe dans mes veines. ... C'est pourquoi à l'exception de mon premier opéra Le prisonnier du Caucase, tous les sujets de mes opéras sont et seront étrangers."
In other words, Cui did not even have the ambition to compose in a Russian sounding manner.
Replace "have the ambition" by "was not interested in" and I am -really- unimpressed by that last complaint :) And some composers are forgotten rightly, but Cui, like other - ... "unsung", one might almost say... - composers - has his fans to whom his music appeals and who have pushed for him. The group may "have to accept" this consensus (formed when not so much of his music has been heard) but those fans will presumably continue those activities off-group :)
We are all individuals here, Eric, and there is no question of there being a consensus on anything, no official line on any issue except that the forum is here to discuss the music of unsung composers of the romantic era. All else is open to debate :)
Quote from: eschiss1 on Wednesday 12 August 2020, 01:39
The prelude to Le Flibustier of course has already been recorded, as you know, on a Marco Polo CD, but you'll have already taken it into account in judging his operas.
The charming Overture to The Mandarin's Son was performed by the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR conducted by Alfons Rischner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSwd7cPUKKs
You are certainly right, Eric, but I might add two points:
1) Often – and up to some degree also in the course of this debate – the question is raised why Cui, as a member of the Group of Five, whose explicit aim was to create a distinctively Russian sounding music, wrote music in which it is typically hard to find right these Russian colours. This seems paradoxic, but the quote I supplied explains things a little. At least I guess it is less surprising to find no Russian sound in his music if we know he did not aim at doing so...
2) The other question raised in this context was why Cui was omitted from Svetlanov's recordings of music by the Russian Five. To this end, it is certainly a valid point to know that Cui is commonly not regarded as a great composer and I think it is very likely that Svetlanov agreed with this, too (knowing that he did record tons of other Russian music, including a good deal of stuff nobody else recorded – the Melodiya anthology which came out two or three years ago contains a total of 120 CDs).
Of course, you and others might enjoy his music nevertheless. :) In this sense, I certainly agree with Mark's statement.
Quote from: Holger on Wednesday 12 August 2020, 14:15
2) The other question raised in this context was why Cui was omitted from Svetlanov's recordings of music by the Russian Five
It's strange that the RCA label started a new series of recordings devoted to the "Russian Five" with the image of Cui seen in the logo on every cover. So something must have been planned before the series stopped.
Maybe they just included his photo because it was a series about the Russian Five and Cui was part of them. Anyway, we cannot know for sure of course.
Quote from: Holger on Wednesday 12 August 2020, 07:19
C'est pourquoi à l'exception de mon premier opéra Le prisonnier du Caucase, tous les sujets de mes opéras sont et seront étrangers."
A version of which, sung by the Krasnoyarsk Opera, is in our Downloads section and, in my view, isn't at all bad and certainly ticks the ""Russian-sounding" box more than well. I still don't understand why they replaced the overture with something written by them though.
Quote from: MartinH on Wednesday 12 August 2020, 00:59
You know, that's a good idea for a recording project. What little of Cui's music I know isn't all that impressive or even Russian sounding. The operas are likely forgotten for good reason. But the overtures? Interesting idea. But - are there overtures?
The wikipedia page to
The Saracen describes the 'orchestral introduction' as "notable". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saracen_(opera) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saracen_(opera)) - The same page also provides a link to a computer version of an extract called "'Gloria Patri' and Wedding Recessional (Act IV)", available here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/CuiSarWedding.ogg (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/CuiSarWedding.ogg)
There exist computer simulations of the overtures/orchestral pieces from
William Ratcliffe and
The Prisoner of the Caucasus, available here:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вильям_Ратклиф_(опера) (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%8F%D0%BC_%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%84_(%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0)) - Overture to
William Ratcliffe - at bottom of page where it says "
MIDI rendering of orchestral Introduction to the opera, from Russisches Musikarkhiv"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8MJ8iPZyE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8MJ8iPZyE) - Overture to
Prisoner of the Caucasus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdbYWQW4Ekc&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdbYWQW4Ekc&feature=youtu.be) - Lezginka, from
Prisoner of the CaucasusA youtuber called Kyle Neff has recorded a full piano version (track by track, not one large track) of
Prisoner of the Caucasus, including the overture, and put it here - http://www.mediafire.com/folder/ytu9eo96dix2x/Cui_KavkazskijPlennik_pno (http://www.mediafire.com/folder/ytu9eo96dix2x/Cui_KavkazskijPlennik_pno)
The same youtuber advertises that he has written a dissertation on Cui's operas, available here - https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/24419 (https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/24419) -
Story, Style, and Structure in the Operas of César CuiFrom the above computer/piano versions, the overture to Prisoner of the Caucasus sounds worthy of being recorded by a real orchestra. If that alone (plus maybe the lezginka) were to be included in a series called The Russian Five, that would justify the name!