Unlikely Silhouettes

On this CD:

1. Carmen, ballet after Bizet for strings & percussion
Composed by Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin
Performed by Young Russia Symphony Orchestra with Andrei Kolokolov, Kirill Denisov, Igor Grishkin, Anna Medvedeva, Andrey Nikitin, Sergey Vasyliev
Conducted by Mark Gorenstein

2. The Bolt, suite from the ballet, Op. 27a
Composed by Dmitry Shostakovich
Performed by Young Russia Symphony Orchestra with Andrei Kolokolov, Kirill Denisov, Igor Grishkin, Anna Medvedeva, Andrey Nikitin, Sergey Vasyliev
Conducted by Mark Gorenstein

Customer Reviews:

Vivid, Virtuoso Performances of 2 Russian Ballet Suites.......2006-04-08

Well, I think Pope Music has pretty much gone under, but not before the company managed to give us several CD's of excellently recorded music. Here is included a stunning performance of Rodion Shchedrin's famous modern Carmen Ballet, based on the equally famous older Carmen music by Bizet, but somehow resulting in more than just an arrangement. Shchedrin's incisive orchestrating skills make your ears sit up and listen to all the Bizet melodies anew. The presence of a large percussion battery, always deployed with great subtltey and musical perceptiveness, probably helps get aural focus. Completing the CD is a rarely heard ballet suite, number 5, from the Bolt music that Shostakovich composed. The composer put together this suite of music from various separate industrial ballet music that he wrote in the 1930's, more or less to Soviet aparatchik order. Next to the brilliance of the Shchedrin Carmen Ballet, this suite may seem - lesser. It is typical Shostakovich, but even in its minority it reflects that composer's sheer genius for making Soviet musical surfaces tell, or at least hint at, deeper truths silenced to the shadows of that bygone era. Given the recent political hijinks in some former Soviet republics, we might even wonder whether or not this Bolt Suite still stands as soundtrack for what is happening in this era.

No discussion of this CD can omit sound. Using custom electronics, Pope Music said it was making real efforts to fine tune its recording art. Judged by this CD, the folks were getting it very right. The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory is a marvelous acoustic when an engineer captures it as well as this CD does. The dynamic range is quite extended, suggesting 24-bit mastering, rather than just the red book 16 bits. Or maybe it is some other aspect of the former Pope Music alchemy. The dynamic range is almost too great, from pppp to FFFF. The frequency response is lacking nothing. Yes, all the highs and lows are there, but so is a sweet, warm middle - which after all is the heart and soul of our musical spectrums.

The Russian State Symphony Orchestra is actually a Youth orchestra. If they are the future of Russian symphony rosters, we can look forward to decades of absolutely stunning, alert playing with almost super-human sheen and presence. These youth players are doing every bit as well as the famous virtuoso Russian National Orchestra that has taken shape under Pletnev and other leaders. Mark Gorenstein doesn't conduct much in North America, but while he favors a tad more deliberate tempos, he always has something interesting in mind that he wants to do with the extra air, yielding a typically transparent orchestra fabric, along with plenty of instrumental detail. Feel free to check out the similar Pope Music recordings of the Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony (on a CD titled, Farewell), and the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony (on a CD titled Redemption). Both the Tchaikovsky 6 and the Shostakovich 5 more than hold their own against some very stiff competition, with even more famous brand name performers. Part of this excellence may simply be that the youth orchestra players are not yet bored to tears with these warhorses of the classical repertoire. Like the JDP recordings of the Mahler 5 & Mahler 10 under Barshai, these kids make you believe in the music all over again. I even enjoyed the Richard Strauss Heldenleben, although Gorenstein takes it at a very broad tempo, indeed, rather like an older outstanding CD when Sir John Barbirolli and the LSO did it.

This is demo quality stuff, no doubt about it. You probably will not be sorry to get hold of it, before it disappears completely from even the used CD marketplaces.

Average customer rating:

Unlikely Silhouettes

Manufacturer: PM- 2002-2
ProductGroup: Classical
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000KWKHKG

Product Description

Track Listing 1. Introduction 2. Dance 3. First Intermezzo 4. Changing of the Guard 5. Carmen's Entrance and Habanera 6. Scene 7. Second Intermezzo 8. Bolero 9. Torero 10. Toero and Carmen 11. Adagio 12. Fortune Telling 13. Finale 14. Interlude 15. Tango 16. Polka 17. Intermezzo 18. Variation

Music Review:

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