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Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Hybrid SACD
Price | New from | Used from |
Audio CD, Hybrid SACD - DSD, January 25, 2005 |
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| — | $9.69 |
Vinyl, May 19, 2017
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| $119.95 | — |
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Track Listings
1 | I. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship |
2 | II. The Story of the Kalender Prince |
3 | III. The Young Prince and the Young Princess |
4 | IV. Festival at Bagdad - The Sea - The Ship Breaks Against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman- Conclusion |
5 | Presto |
6 | Chinese March |
7 | Song of the Nightingale |
8 | The Mechanical Nightingale |
9 | The Emperor's Displeasure at the Departure of the Real Nightingale |
10 | The Emperor's Sickroom |
11 | The Real Nightingale Returns to Thwart Death |
12 | Funeral March and Finale |
Editorial Reviews
Product description
CD
Amazon.com
This is a classic recording of these two works, led with grand authority by Fritz Reiner. The Chicago's brass and wind section play gloriously throughout, and the final movement of Scheherazade (we learn from the original producer [1960] in an accompanying essay) was recorded in one take--an almost unheard-of feat. This fast movement is taken at breakneck speed, with no loss of clarity or power, with the strings in the hands of magicians. Stravinsky's Nightingale has never sounded so exotic, so bristling over with color, since this 1956(!) recording under Reiner, and the wonderful surprise with this new release of old material is the revamped sound: the original "Living Stereo" was a fantastic breakthrough in recording, and this new SACD format has returned the spatial relationships to something so "real" that it comes as close as I've ever heard to a true concert hall experience. Simply glorious. --Robert Levine
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- Language : English
- Product Dimensions : 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches; 4 ounces
- Manufacturer : Sony Classical
- Item model number : 2195007
- Original Release Date : 2005
- Run time : 1 hour and 7 minutes
- SPARS Code : ADD
- Date First Available : January 29, 2007
- Label : Sony Classical
- ASIN : B0006PV5VC
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #9,617 in CDs & Vinyl (See Top 100 in CDs & Vinyl)
- #8 in Classical Tone Poems
- #14 in Classical Suites
- #76 in Opera & Vocal (CDs & Vinyl)
- Customer Reviews:
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For Rimsky-Korsakov the period from the summer of 1887 to that of 1888 was an absolutely miraculous time and one which included piecing together and orchestrating much of Boris Godunov after Borodin’s death.. He had drifted away from Balakirev’s circle (“The Mighty Five”) back in the 1870’s over the issue of schooling in musical composition, which the others abjured. The group, for all its fame had mostly broken up after the first decade though they remained cordial. Balakirev withdrew twice from all his musical friends, the first time into religion and the second when he realized he would no longer be the center of classical music in Russia. Mussorgsky had left his old friends for a group of cognac-drinking tavern friends and died early. Rimsky-Korsakov thought Stasov’s nickname for the group was “tasteless” anyway. By the 1880’s he had joined the group which surrounded Mitrofan Belyayev, a timber magnate and philanthropist who was interested in promoting Russian classical music. He underwrote a series of high-profile “Russian Symphony Concerts” in St. Petersburg to promote the music of Russian composers.
The concerts inspired Rimsky-Korsakov so much that within a year’s time he wrote three of his most famous orchestral works for the second season.: The Russian Easter Overture, Capriccio Espagnol and Scheherazade. All three works ironically were full of the color and exotic sounds beloved by Balakirev’s group. In fact he had opened the first concert in 1886 with the late Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain. After this he turned his attention almost entirely to composing operas which are known outside of Russia mainly from the orchestral suites he exerpted from them.
Reiner’s Scheherazade is sumptuous, exciting and played with amazing intensity. It is always tied with Kondrashin’s wonderful performance with the Concertbegouw Orchestra as my favorite. Like Kondrashin he seems to get every moment just right. I will note that he plays a phrase within “The Young Prince and the Princess” a bit slower than most for a more romantic effect and this can seem odd at first hearing if you’re used to other recordings. However as one would expect, in time it seems absolutely natural. The sound is beyond amazing on this CD edition. Rich and full, it’s practically impossible to believe this was recorded in early 1960 (and The Song of the Nightingale in 1956!). RCA’s three-microphone process didn’t miss anything and apparently if the sound is there in the masters the current technology can reproduce it beautifully.
The Song of the Nightingale is a bit of a problematic companion piece. Given the warhorse standing of Scheherazade with its big, resounding Romantic melodies I might have chosen the Lt. Kije Suite as a companion on CD simply for its likeability factor. In fact on the original RCA Living Stereo LP’s, The song of the Nightengale was paired with the Lt. Kije Suite while Scheherazade was long enough to fill an album by itself. Many fans of Scheherazade may find Song of the Nightingale a bit too daunting and difficult. Though championed by some major conductors it has never been popular since its premiere and is rarely featured in live performances. Its dissonance, lack of big melodies and episodic structure all limited its appeal to the classical audience.
However, that said, if you give it a chance with a number of playings it really grows on you and becomes a delightful piece with its shimmering orientalism. Once you get used to its sound world the only really dissonance comes from the mechanical nightingale and that is the way it’s supposed to sound. Reiner, of course, who had a flair for the early moderns like Stravinsky and Bartok was just the conductor to record this piece. Still, some people will never warm to it and I just want to mention that. Song of the Nightingale is a short piece anyway and it’s Scheherazade that is the main item here and this is one of the great ones.
“Scheherazade” is paired with Igor Stravinsky’s “Song of the Nightingale”, a half-hour adaptation of an opera the artist began writing before his career-launching “Firebird” and then picked up again after the “The Rite of Spring”, completing the symphonic work in 1917. As such, it is a fascinating document of style change, harkening back to the “Rite” and “Petrushka” at several points, and succeeded by a series of spare works, such as “Pribaoutki” and “Les Noces”, which abandoned the world of the “mega-ballet” with its orchestral effects and sonic splendor.
The pairing of these two ballets is both natural and illuminating. For me, the finale of “Scheherazade” is full of intimations of Stravinsky’s developments two decades later, such as the “interruption” technique – the sudden shifting between two textures with widely varying rhythms and instrumentation – and repetition of brief modal thematic cells, deployed in embryo by the prescient Rimsky-Korsakov.
The performance of “Nightingale” is just as enthralling as “Scheherazade”. I am used to the more precise and buttoned-down version from Pierre Boulez. Reiner lies at the other end of the interpretive spectrum from Boulez; he creates a bold, technicolor “Nightingale”, quick (shorter by about 5 minutes), extroverted rather than precious.
This disc is splendid. I had been meaning to buy it for years and expected to love it. Even with such high expectations, the disc surpassed them. This is a great one.
Top reviews from other countries
Fritz Reiner riesce sempre a darti un'approccio all'esecuzione fantastico. E' uno di quei direttori che ti trasmette la composizione sapendoti sempre stupire. Ho dato il punteggio massimo perchè il livello tecnico artistico è talmente elevato che cio' che potrebbe essere criticato è immensamente ridicolo. Il lieve fruscio del nastro analogico è una caratteristica quasi inudibile. Io rilevo che la tecnica analogica ha ancora in se quella presenza e calore che fanno si che il fruscio o soffio siano come la tela di un quadro, dove si dipanano le note di queste registrazioni magiche.
E' un privilegio poter fare uno storico di questo patrimonio di autori con ottime riprese del suono. Un encomio a quella grandissima orchestra che sono i Chicago Symphony Orchestra che gestiscono un suono superbamente bello e sontuoso .
grazie....
Roberto Ghirardini
まさにリビングステレオの面目躍如です。
必聴!