Given Serge Koussevitzky’s Russian background, it should not be a surprise that two of the five two-CD albums in the Maestro Risoluto box set are devoted to Russian composers. These can be divided roughly into nineteenth-century and twentieth-century compositions. The composers represented in the third album are Modest Mussorgsky, Alexander Scriabin, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
To be fair, however, there are shadows of the twentieth century cast over both Mussorgsky and Scriabin. For the better part of his life, Scriabin focused on solo piano music, much of which reflects the influences of Frédéric Chopin. However, those influences began to subside beginning in 1903; and Scriabin became far more adventurous in both keyboard and orchestral compositions.
He is represented on this Koussevitzky album by his Opus 54, entitled “The Poem of Ecstasy,” which is structured around a whole-tone scale leading to ambiguous chord progressions. This is one of several approaches through which twentieth-century music made a sharp break with the nineteenth century; but, from a rhetorical point of view, Scriabin’s expressiveness still reflects approaches from his earlier nineteenth-century compositions. This may not convincingly justify his rubbing shoulders with Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky; and, as will be seen in the subsequent discussion of twentieth-century Russian composers, the “fit” for Opus 54 is equally insecure in both centuries. The recording of this piece was made during a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in Symphony Hall on October 15, 1946, by which time any thoughts of Scriabin as a “modernist” had begun to fade.
More interesting is the Mussorgsky selection, which is Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. Many readers may groan over the prospect of listening to yet another recording of this orchestral version. However, this particular recording is probably the most historically significant selection in the entire Maestro Risoluto collection.
That significance comes from the fact that Koussevitzky himself had a hand in the creation of this orchestral version. Ravel probably would not have undertaken the project had it not been for the fact that Koussevitzky commissioned him to do so in 1922. As a result, Koussevitzky was the first to conduct this version at a concert that took place in Paris on October 19, 1922, after which he financed the publication of Ravel’s score.
As the hucksters say, “And that’s not all!” The music was recorded for the first time by the BSO with Koussevitzky conducting recording sessions that took place between October 28, 1930 and the following October 30. That is the recording that is included in the Maestro Risoluto collection, and it is about as “historical” as anyone can expect! Ironically, the booklet accompanying this album says nothing about this significant historical background.
The other Mussorgsky selection is also a product of arrangement. “Night on Bald Mountain” is most frequently performed in an orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Ironically, neither Ravel nor Rimsky-Korsakov are given any credit for their efforts in the track listing for this album. Nevertheless, this is the “all-Russian” selection, contrasting with the “French approach” to the Pictures suite!
The second CD in this album is devoted entirely to Tchaikovsky. It consists primarily of the Opus 36 (fourth) symphony in F minor. The recording was made on May 4, 1936; and the remastering does justice to the vigorous no-holds-barred approach that Koussevitzky took in his interpretation. That intensity of interpretation then continues with his approach to the Opus 32 “symphonic fantasy, “Francesca da Rimini.” That selection was recorded on April 19, 1946. To the best of my knowledge, Koussevitzky never played the organ; but he clearly appreciated the pull-out-all-the-stops metaphor!
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