Customer Reviews

Moussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain/Pictures at an Exhibition

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I agree with Mr. Hurwitz and the customers below who rave about this performance and its sound quality. "Pictures" remains my favorite classical composition, and I've collected 6 versions of it (this one plus readings by Szell, Reiner, Ormandy and Dorati, the latter paired on Mercury with Byron Janis' brilliant rendition of the original piano version). I put this one and Szell's at the head of the class. My one quibble with this disc is that it's rather overpriced for a mere 40 minutes of music. The Szell disc, on Sony Essential Classics, gives you over an hour's worth of playing time for only half the price, and includes absolutely crackling performances of Hary Janos (Szell wasn't bashful about putting the cimbalon front and center, to great effect) and Lt. Kije. All in all, the Szell disc is a much better value, although you still might consider Maazel's recording if you really want a top-notch Bald Mountain. There's also a technical detail that makes this CD a bit annoying for those who might want to skip around the vignettes, for whatever reason: "Pictures" is on a single track, rather than parsed into 15 tracks, as is the norm.

With Lorin Maazel recently installed as the music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, there arises the question "What can we expect from this relationship?"

As a partial answer to the question, I have gone through my own library of Maazel recordings, covering a period of nearly 40 years and several orchestras and labels, as well as a fairly wide range of repertoire, to select this all-Mussorgsky album as one of the finest he has done to date. The album has been in my library for nearly a quarter-century in LP form, and then the CD release was added very early in the market launch of CDs in the U.S. nearly 20 years ago. The passage of time has not diminished in the slightest either the superb performances or the equally superb sonics of this Telarc recording, made with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Maazel's relationship with the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra was nothing if not "stormy"; as a result, his tenure there was fairly short-lived. But - in his favor - he is both a superb "orchestra builder" and a conductor not known for waywardness. (As an aside, anyone looking for a "wayward," unidiomatic performance of the Mussorgsky/Ravel "Pictures at an Exhibition" need look no further than Sergiu Celibidache's performance, on EMI, with the Munich Philharmonic. If nothing else, that Celibidache recording will provide one with an appreciation of this Maazel recording.)

Both Mussorgsky works on this recording are testimony to a number of interrelated factors: the warm acoustics of Severance Hall in Cleveland, the recording techniques of Telarc (using minmal microphone set-ups in ideal locations as pioneered by Robert Fine of Mercury Records), the muscianship of the orchestra, and the interpretive insights of Maazel. The ensemble work throughout is razor-sharp, with ultra-clean entrances and perfect balance of orchestral choirs. The recording provides a heightened sense of realism, in which the ability of Maazel to draw out the inner lines of the music is supported by the technical genius of Bob Woods and Jack Renner and their Telarc team in providing the acoustical ambience for appreciating the work of conductor and orchestra.

Nowhere is this combination made clearer than in the closing pages of "The Great Gate of Kiev" in "Pictures at an Exhibition." The final perorations of the brass choir, in the concluding coda, are simply stunning in their top-to-bottom fullness and clarity. To this day, I still marvel at the ability to hear every single instrumental line in this brass peroration; it is as if I could "focus" on any individual instrument of my choice. Surely, despite its age, this recording remains as one of the benchmarks for audio quality not soon to be surpassed.

By today's standards, this CD is rather "small measure" in terms of listening time (although it certainly wasn't in its original LP guise, or in the very earliest days of CDs). And, as much as I enjoy the Ravel transcription of "Pictures at an Exhibition," I also like to listen to both the Stokowski transcription and the Gortchakov one (the favorite of Kurt Masur, Maazel's predecessor at the NYPO) as well. But Maazel's reading of the Mussorgsky/Ravel remains the definitive one for me.

This CD is both a piece of "audio history" and a pair of stunning performances with the Cleveland Orchestra performing and sounding at its very highest level. Yes, definitely one of Maazel's best.

Bob Zeidler

This classic recording of Mussorgorsky's most popular orchestral works deserves its critical acclaim. Not only is the sound quality in this early digital recording exemplary, but the performances are first rate. Both the Penguin Guide to classical CD music and Grammophone's guide list Maazel's interpretation of "Pictures at an Exhibition" as definitive. The Cleveland Orchestra gives a lush, warm performance akin to those I've heard from the Berlin Philharmonic under the batons of Karajan and Giulini, but under Maazel's conducting the Cleveland Orchestra plays better. And their performance of "Night..." is first rate too. The Cleveland Orchestra plays both pieces with precision as well as warmth. I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of the finest recordings made during Maazel's stormy tenure as the Cleveland Orchestra's music director. I agree with those who have complained that Telarc should have listed more tracks for "Pictures at an Exhibition", but this is a minor nuisance. A more valid criticism is the CD's cost with regards to the length of these performances. Yet if you're interested in acquiring two of the best performances of Mussorgsky's work then buy this CD. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

What is that saying? Oh, yeah: "Everything that can be said has been said. It just hasn't been said by everyone yet."

This was the first CD I bought. In fact, I bought it a couple of years before I was finally able to buy my first CD player (they were really expensive).

I was a stereo salesman in those bygone days. I've always felt I owed Maazel, Telarc, the Cleveland Orchestra, et al, a commission for all the money I made simply playing this recording for my custoemrs and shutting up.

And now more than a quarter century has gone by. I no longer sell stereo equipment (thank God), CD players cost about the same as a two Big Macs, the world has fallen apart and been patched back together so many times I've lost count, and this is still the best damned reason for digital stereo I've ever heard.

If you don't own it you should. If you do own it you already know why.

Lorin Maazel's discography is quite varied. Most of his early recordings are famous (like this one) and are considered classics. However, as he aged, critics began to feel his perchance for technicality began to take precedence over emotion. This CD was one of the conductor's first recordings, and it is still considered today THE definitive Pictures at an Exhibition. The sound is crystal clear in this digital masterpiece. The orchestral playing is top-notch and cannot be matched. The sound is transparent revealing Ravel's beautiful orchestration. This truly is one of those CDs that everyone should own, no matter what. Although the other reviews have summed up most of my feelings on this CD, I cannot stress how wonderful this CD is. A MUST!

I bought it on vinyl in the early days of digital recording, and I bought it again on CD when it was released there. This is the definitive recording of one of my favorite works. The playing is precise, the brass choir in the Great Gate at Kiev is chilling, and the Maazel intrepretation is the finest I have heard.

More interesting, the recording was so well engineered, the sound of Severence Hall in Cleveland was precisely and accurately expressed. If you have an audiophile quality system, this may be the single best test of inner detail you could own!

The performances of these two Mussorgsky pieces leaves me absolutely speechless. This early CD recording on Telarc really sets the standard for clarity and power of sound. Maazel's interpretations are masterful. You MUST listen to the last two minutes of Pictures At an Exhibition on this CD. They just may be the most awe-inspiring music ever recorded!

One of the first LP's I ever owned was "Pictures". I bought to show off my new HiFi amplifier. I lived in Cleveland and the first time I ever attended a concert under George Szell, "Pictures" was on the program. Then came TelArc and this recording. When played in STEREO, it was a knockout! You could see and feel the pictures. The emotion packed into this recording is hard to duplicate.

Ravel's orchestration gets the most play. This recording can show you why. His abilities as an orchestrator are unparalleled, and equaled perhaps only by Strauss (Richard) and Stravinsky.

Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration of "Night on Bald Mountain," however, is not my favorite. A lot of composers had problems with Mussorgsky's abilities, apparently, but I would prefer a different version of this piece.

The orchestra plays "Night" and "Pictures" very well, with precision and at lively tempos. It's really very good, although I would like to hear these pieces with a bit more fire.

Sorry for my very bad english i'm a person from SPAIN (Europe). I have about of 32 discs of this compositor and of course of this tittle, I believe that the offer from TELARC is a copy that the old
direct to disc record in vinyl (I'm a affortunetly man that I have it). Anyway super the disc (it is one os my prefers). Congratulations to TELARC.