BaL 17.05.14 - Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30 a.m.
Nicholas Baragwanath with a personal recommendation from recordings of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death - a darkly brooding and angry work - in the version for voice and piano, as well as the one for voice and orchestra.

Available versions:-

Sergei Aleksashkin, Chicago SO, Sir Georg Solti
Irina Arkhipova, Igor Guselnikov
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Peter Breiner (orch. Breiner)
Feodor Challapin
Eugene Nesterenko, Vladimir Krainev
Gerald Finlay, Julius Drake
Dmitri Hvorstovsky, Montreal SO, Charles Dutoit (DVD)
Dmitri Hvorstovsky, Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (Orch. Shostakovitch)
Dmitri Hvorstovsky, Ivari Ilja
Dmitri Hvorstovsky, St Petersburg PO, Yuri Temirkanov
Marianne Beate Kielland, Sergej Osadchuk
Brass Ensemble of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Lutz Kohler
Anatoly Kotcherga, BPO, Caudio Abbado
Sergei Leiferkus. Semion Skelgin
George London, John Newmark
George London, Erik Werba
Ewa Podles, Graham Johnson
Ewa Podles, Garrick Ohlsson
Ewa Podles, Philharmonia of Russia, Constantine Orbelian
Joseph Rouleau, Charles Reiner (sung in French)
Erik Sædén, Hans Palsson
Lahti SO Osmo Vanska (orch. Kalevi Aho)
Vassily Savenko, Michael Dussek
Sergei Semishkur, VPO, Vaery Gergiev (DVD/Blu-ray)
USSR SO, Evgeny Svetlanov
Anja Silja, Andrei Hoteev
Henk Smit
Mikhail Svetlov, Pavlina Dokovska
Martti Talvela, Finnish RSO, Leif Segerstam
Wolga Virtuosos, Jouri Kostev
Galina Vishnevskaya, Mstislav Rostropovich

[umslopogaas]

What!? No Boris Christoff? I have him singing these on a 3 CD set of the complete songs:

EMI CHS 763025 2 (mono)

I also have a second version by Martti Talvela, with Ralf Gothoni (piano) on a Decca LP:

SXL 6974

I have no way of checking if the Talvela made it to CD, or if either CDs are currently available. But I would have thought the Christoff was essential.

[verismissimo]

I also have Christoff - with the French National Radio Orchestra under Georges Tzipine. I wonder if he recorded them with piano? Also I have Bernard Kruysen with Noel Lee (which I doubt has made it to CD).

For me, one of the pleasures of BaL is that it creates a brief focus for re-visiting works that one hasn't listened to in years! This is one of those.

I'd like to hear the Chaliapin. Maybe that's on YouTube...

[umslopogaas]

He did record at least one with piano accompaniment: 'Field-Marshal Death', with Gerald Moore on piano, recorded March 1951. Its on a 3 lp set issued by HMV Treasury, called 'Boris Christoff, the 1949 -1952 Recordings.' Code RLS 735.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Hmm, curious...at least 3 LP recodings and none of them on the list

Arkhipova/ Stuchevsky On HMV Melodiya ASD 3103 (sp., EA!)
Luxon/ Willison on Argo
Christoff/orch/ Tzipine, already mentioned.
I have the latter in Christoff's 'complete'(?) Mussorgsky songs in a 3-LP German set which is nearly unplayed because it's so totally infuriating Apart from the fact that the texts are given only in German translation (no Russian, script or transliteration), the songs are given in strict chronological order which means that of the three cycles, only Sunless is uninterrupted. The others actually each get split across two discs

I have yet to root around the shelves for any more SADODs lurking on anthology-discs...

EDIT The CD shelves have coughed up the Vishnevskaya, and Sergei Leiferkus with Semion Skigin - another one for EA's mighty Tippex brush?

Hope EA's Arkhipova recording is as good as the one I have: it's the first one I'd reach for. Though that might just be because of the wonderful cover painting by Vasily Vereshchagin ('Apotheosis of War'). Does Mr Putin know it, I wonder?

[gurnemanz]

The 3cd Boris Christoff is an indispensable buy in my view. I got it a few years ago quite cheaply on the Andomeda label and then had hours of fun hunting down the song texts which were not provided. As mentioned, the Songs and Dances of Death are done with orchestra and I think I would also like a piano version. We saw them in this form last year at the local Tetbury Festival in a fine rendition with Jonathan Lemalu. I have noticed that the Sergei Leiferkus complete edition is about to appear very cheaply on Brilliant Classics (good offer here) and I suspect I will snap this up whatever is recommended.

[umslopogaas]

My 3 CD set is on EMI References (French EMI, acute accents on the first two e): CHS 763025 2. The booklet has the words in Russian (Russian alphabet, no transliteration), English, French and German. I paid a lot for my set as a special import and was rather peeved to spot a second-hand set in a record shop a few weeks later for half the money!

I know that EA only lists versions currently available, so the LP sets mentioned may not have been transferred to CD, or perhaps they were but are currently not available (other than second-hand).

[LeMartinPecheur]

My 3 CD set is on EMI References (French EMI, acute accents on the first two e): CHS 763025 2. The booklet has the words in Russian (Russian alphabet, no transliteration), English, French and German. I paid a lot for my set as a special import and was rather peeved to spot a second-hand set in a record shop a few weeks later for half the money!

gurnemanz/ umslop: do these CD versions still have the broken-up cycles that I protested against in#5? I might be tempted if this insanity has been corrected!

[umslopogaas]

The cycles 'Sunless', 'Songs and Dances of Death' and 'The Nursery' are all complete and together, with the songs in numerical order, on my French EMI References set. None of the irritation that the German set must cause (I wonder why they did it, only a musicologist would want to listen to the songs in the chronological order that he actually wrote them, rather than as musical entities?). Its a long time since I bought it, but I do remember the special import price was hefty: there'd be a good chance of a second-hand set, though.

I also have the original HMV 4 LP set, complete with enormous booklet with all the words in four languages, but that is something of a rarity: I've collected classical LPs for decades and its the only one I've ever seen.

[Pulcinella]

I have a version (Shostakovich orchestration) with Robert Lloyd, Philadelphia Orchestra, Maris Jansons; it is the filler to Shostakovich 10, still available (at least via Amazon). Understandably, it seems not to have been included in the Jansons complete Shostakovich symphony box set, at least according to the track listing I found. I guess that the box set is not just a simple reissue of the original CDs.

[gurnemanz]

gurnemanz/ umslop: do these CD versions still have the broken-up cycles that I protested against in#5? I might be tempted if this insanity has been corrected!

EMI and Andromeda complete have identical tracks. Cycles are not split up,

[LeMartinPecheur]

I also have the original HMV 4 LP set, complete with enormous booklet with all the words in four languages, but that is something of a rarity: I've collected classical LPs for decades and its the only one I've ever seen.

Is this the one? Ebay has seen it of course: theirs fetched £40 apparently.

[umslopogaas]

That's it: I'm surprised it only fetched £40, but of course, it is mono and there's rather less interest among collectors in mono-only recordings (with some notable exceptions: mono-only violinists like Leonid Kogan (he did make some stereo recordings too) and Johanna Martzy can fetch big money. If you've got the 3 lp set of Martzy playing unaccompanied Bach partitas, its worth several thousand quid).

[LeMartinPecheur]

Seems like we'll struggle to pick up Christoff's recording on CD for much under £30...

Are EMI/ Warner perhaps set on making it into an 'introuvable'?

[gurnemanz]

Seems like we'll struggle to pick up Christoff's recording on CD for much under £30...

Are EMI/ Warner perhaps set on making it into an 'introuvable'?

It's on the Icon Box. 11 CDs for £20.