Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade / Capriccio espagnol

 
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NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade / Capriccio espagnol
London Symphony Orchestra, Igor Markevitch, with Erich Gruenberg, solo violin (Scheherazade)

[ Decca Australian Eloquence / CD ]

Release Date: Friday 14 June 2019

In 1936, the English composer and writer Constant Lambert described Igor Markevitch as 'the leading figure of the Franco-Russian school'. As a composer he had been commissioned by Diaghilev and performed by the likes of Alfred Cortot and Roger Désormière, but his posthumous reputation largely rests on his prowess as a conductor, a profession he took up in the 1930s after study with Pierre Monteux.

As an interpreter, Markevitch combined a volatile personality with meticulous attention to the composer's instructions, very much in the mould of Monteux. He was ideally suited in this regard to the Russian repertoire from Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky. Central both to this history and to his repertoire was the music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov with its sinuous melodies and ever-astonishingly original orchestral colours.

Made by Philips engineers in London in October 1962, this album of the composer's best-loved orchestral works complements Markevitch's cycle of the Tchaikovsky symphonies, also recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra during the mid-1960s. They share many of the same qualities: super-charged tension, precise definition (in both performance and engineering) and refreshingly unusual articulation in repertoire that has often become stale by familiarity and lazy execution. Markevitch never made a lazy or conventional recording in his life, and he attended to the sweeping narrative of Scheherazade with the kind of detail that distinguishes his electrifying accounts of The Rite of Spring.

'Markevitch is more mercurial [than Ormandy], building to climaxes more subtly, broadening out for the many solo passages, which are done with freedom and imagination … A further advantage for Philips (in addition to its lower price) is the bonus of Capriccio espagnol in a galvanic and brilliantly colorful reading.' Fanfare, March/April 1980

"This is, quite simply, one of the best-played and recorded accounts of Scheherazade ever made, right from the opening moment when the LSO brass uncompromisingly blast out Sultan Schahriar's ominously threatening theme until the point, 42 minutes later, when peace and tranquillity are restored to the harem as Scheherazade herself delivers a consolatory and emotionally cathartic resolution to all the foregoing nautical, terrestrial and marital dramas....These two Igor Markevitch recordings demonstrate yet again the conductor's innate skill in the Russian repertoire as well as the very high standards of playing that the London Symphony Orchestra was exhibiting at the beginning of what was to be something of a Golden Age in its history" MusicWeb

"Markevitch and the LSO's virtuosic Capriccio espagnol is breathtaking. Scheherazade - impulsive, theatrical and seductive - is equally compelling" BBC Music

Tracks:

1-5 Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
6-9 Scheherazade, Op. 35