Customer Reviews

Glière: The Red Poppy (Complete Ballet)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wonderful performance of this neglected ballet. Hard to believe it's from the Soviet era. Very full and rich sound from the orchestra which seems like it's coming from deep past the speakers: "somewhat distant perspective, so beware" if that's not your cup of tea. But, as for me, I love it!

In my own personal database I rate both sound and performance on a scale of from 1 - 11, so I'll have to tailor my reviews from now on to Amazon's 5 Star system. Both Sound and Performance would get a "5". But, as I said, the soundstage is fairly deep and may take some getting used to. As it will probably be new music to you (except, perhaps, for the "Russian Sailors' Dance" I urge you to give it a couple of run throughs to learn the music more thoroughly. Wonderfully romantic music that you will probably think was written in the mid to late 1800's instead of the Soviet era. Don't be afraid of this one, it's really great.

Mark Zimmerman

This is a nice ballet by Gliere, the creator of the Bronze Horseman Suite and the Il'ya Murometz symphony (No. 3, Op. 42). I got this CD a few years ago and I've listened to it many times. It is the only complete Red Poppy available on CD that I know of. To my untrained but musical ears, the orchestra plays out of tune a number of times, and like the previous reviewer said, the sound is deep, as if the microphones are far from the orchestra or the stage is creating slight echo, so the CD is just ok for casual listening. Better sounding highlights from this ballet are available on the market, but for the full ballet, this is unfortunately it!

Having heard exerpts from this work it was high time to listen to the complete work. CD quality was excellent and the music well worth hearing.