SOMM to Release Koussevitzky “Legacy” Album

Serge Koussevitzky on the cover of the album being discussed (courtesy of Rosebrook Media)

I have come to associate SOMM Recordings with informed historical accounts of British music involving both composers and performers. This coming Friday SOMM will release a two-CD album on which the only British “musical presence” is the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The conductor, however, is one of the most influential figures in cultivating music of the twentieth century: Serge Koussevitzky. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders for this new and historically significant release.

Ironically, Koussevitzky’s presence on this site has never been more than in passing. While he was born in Russia, he, like many other Russians, was a major figure in Paris in the early decades of the twentieth century. To cite only one example, he conducted the premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 16 (second) piano concerto in G minor in 1924.

However, since both my undergraduate and graduate studies took place in Cambridge (Massachusetts), I was most aware of Koussevitzky due to his memorable tenure as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). For the record, I arrived in Cambridge when the BSO baton was being (literally) passed from Charles Munch (Koussevitzky’s successor) to Erich Leinsdorf. Leinsdorf became the new darling of the classical music radio stations, while my campus radio station had a healthy collection of Munch albums and none of Koussevitzky. To be fair, however, Victor technology was not (yet) sophisticated enough to capture the many subtleties of interpretation that distinguished Koussevitzky from pretty much all of his contemporaries.

The new SOMM album presents two selections what bring those subtleties to the attention of the curious listener. The first of these is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Opus 64 (fifth) symphony in E minor; and the second is Jean Sibelius’ Opus 43 (second) symphony in D major. These are separated by a “memoir” of Koussevitzky in Boston through interviews arranged by Jon Tolansky.

Koussevitzky’s individuality is almost immediately evident in the Andante introduction to the first movement of the Tchaikovsky symphony. Some might dismiss Koussevitzky’s interpretation as self-indulgent; but, as the symphony progresses, one begins to appreciate the interpretation as just that, a conductor seeking out an interpretation that will bring the music to the attention of the listener, a listener that may well begin with the preconception that (s)he has “heard it all” where any Tchaikovsky symphony is concerned. Koussevitzky’s technique is not about self-gratification; it is about cultivating listener attention through new perspectives. His approach to the Sibelius symphony is not quite as outrageous, but he is clearly just as concerned with making sure that his listeners are giving the performance the attention it deserves.

Unless I am mistaken, this is my first encounter with a recording of Koussevitzky at work. Thanks to Amazon.com, I was able to located a ten-CD collection that includes both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Production details are, for the most part, absent; but the collection is distributed by The International Music Company, which is based in Hamburg, Germany. It goes without saying that I shall be seeking out time to learn more about legacy recordings of this historically-significant conductor.