Customer Reviews

Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky / Lieutenant Kije / Scythian Suite, Opp. 20,60,78

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At first glance, Soviet music sung by a British Chorus and a Russian Mezzo, played by a British and an American orchestra, conducted by a German trained Italian seems too diverse to succeed, but this recording is not only a success, it's a great success.

Of the recordings on this disk, Alexander Nevsky and Lieutenant Kije both started life as score's for films by Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Faintsimmer respectively and both were later re-cast into the orchestral works contained on this CD. This is where the similarity ends. A great sense of fun pervades the music through Kije and is carried off with great aplomb by Abbado and his players. I still can't decide if I like this recording or Reiner's more, but both are equally good, so it's really a win - win situation, whatever your final choice.

Nevsky however is a very different piece, at the time when it was being written both Prokofiev and the film's director Eisenstein were seriously out of favour with Stalin, Khrennikov and the sham critics of the time, a poor reception for this film could well have seen both of them deported to a Siberian Gulag like so many millions of others and this sense of brooding fear and paranoia pervades the work, but they got lucky, Stalin liked the work and their fortunes revived because of it. Looking back to Nevsky's campaign of 1242, the piece also succeeds in capturing the atmosphere of the Soviet Union in 1938 and looks forward to the horrors that were to come in the years of war that followed. Yet despite this, it is a work of tremendous power and beauty, I have yet to hear the famous "Battle on Ice" performed with more power or "The Field of the Dead" sung so movingly. Elena Obratzova rises to the occasion magnificently. Let no one tell you that Jarvi or Previn's recordings are preferable to this one.

The Scythian Suite was commissioned by Sergei Diaghelev for his Ballet Russe and shows a young Prokofiev showing just what he was capable of. This work ranks with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin as one of the most barbaric pieces of music ever written and Abbado gives it full voice in this breathtaking reading.

The cinematic world would be a far more enjoyable place to venture into if we had more composers who could write film music like Prokofiev could. His foray into the movie world (for Eisenstein's films Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky) must be considered one of the pinnacles of film music. The cantata Alexander Nevsky is built from material from the film of the same name. Unlike most film music it is more than aptly suited to survive on its own, away from the screen. The other two works on this disc are less than masterworks, but still very entertaining. The Scythian Suite is hardly Prokofiev's genius at work. It was written originally as a ballet (in direct competition with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring) for Diaghilev, but was rejected. He salvaged the music and made the Scythian Suite, which is very violent, primitive, brutal and quite entertaining. Lt. Kije is a fun little piece, it's Romance is particularily delightful. I think you would have a lot of trouble finding a better performance of Nevsky than this one, Abbado's talent is at it's peak here, and the LSO can really belt out the loud moments of this music (and they are VERY loud), without losing their clarity. In short, Nevsky is the kind of music that makes Prokofiev one of my all-time favorite composers.

Abbado's Alexander Nevsky is full-bloodedly idiomatic, metrical and tightly controlled. He captures perfectly the tortured triumph of the closing bars, with its crashing dissonances underlined. The singing could pass for that of a Russian choir and the LSO's playing is spectacular. The slightly analytical sound highlights the angularity of the music making. His Lt. Kije Suite is colorful and amiable and his Scythian Suite, while a bit rhythmically flat-footed in "The Alien God and Dance of the Evil Spirits," has plenty of mystery elsewhere.

Claudio Abbado' is definitely one of the greatest Prokofiev conductor of all time. His recording of the Peter and the Wolf in collaboration with Sting really gives a nice, delightful touch, as well as the Classical Symphony, often given a bit loose, heavy performances by even the most eminent maestros such as Karajan.

In this album too, Abbado gives a defining performance on the more serious, dark, and thrilling music by Prokofiev. In the Alexander Nevsky Suite, based on a 13th century Russian hero who led his troops to defeat Teutonic invaders, the climatic battle on ice is especially a thrill. The chorus sings "Peregrinus expectavi" with ice cold fright and as dark as siege, and high paced tempo really drives the audience. And in the Scythian Suite, the equally savage Dance of the Dark Spirits is as powerful under Abbado as it should be.

On the other hand, the more brighter Lieutenant Kije Suite restore the charm the maestro gave when he did Peter and the Wolf.

Try it out and I'm more than positive that you'll really get blown away.

Maestro Abbado had done it again. From the bone-chilling bite of the strings (depicting the Russian winter) that open Alexander Nevsky across the Frozen Lake, the LSO under Abbado maintains a dramatic reading of the score. The LSC lacks nothing in the way of Russian idiom and Elena Obraztsova necessarily gives an authentic performance. Her voice is suitably dark. Personally, however, I prefer Anna Reynolds' more haunting lament under Previn...only because Reynolds sounds like a younger woman and to me this is more convincing (and tragic, given the "robbery" of war). Previn also has the added bonus of being recorded in EMI's double-forte Classics series, which also has the complete "Ivan the Terrible" (with brilliant soloists including a more youthful and vocally secure Irina Arkhipova) and Rachmaninov's "The Bells". Nonetheless, I give this recording it's due as a great rendition of what I consider to be Prokofiev's most accessible vocal work.

The Scythian Suite begins to delve into what I like less about Prokofiev but what, nonetheless, is his more radical and novel side. My comments are therefore curtailed to say this: I have heard far more impenetrable compositions so it's clearly not beyond appreciation (even from someone like me who dislikes dissonance/atonality). Moreover, Abbado's conducting doesn't convey any notion of sheer chaos, so for those who can better appreciate it, this will likely be a good reading (I'm given to believe more than "good" but given my admitted lack of objectivity on the matter, I wouldn't want to indulge my own ignorance).

Lieutenant Kije on the other hand is a lovely little work. Anyone who remembers the soundtrack from "The Gladiator" will recognise the inspiration for some of the film's music (together with Wagner's Gotterdammerung incidentally). Again Maestro Abbado conducts with true feeling and warmth, convincingly conveying the drama.

This disc forms an worthy part of any introduction to Prokofiev.

Chicago Symphony, Claudio Abbado, and Prokofiev could there be a nicer mix? Anyways the Chicago Sympony along with Abbado were well up to the task of playing all this music. I especially liked the lyrical trumpet solo opening up Lt. Kije, and the string solos in the middle movement. The LSO also was in the act with Alexander Nevsky. Its hard to believe that Alexander Nevsky is a film score. John Williams needs to take some notes. This is a powerful score. Overal this disc is really good. It features awesone playing and good music. If you never heard Prokofiev this is a good place to start.

The originals of these performances date from 1978 and 1980, the remastering having been done in 1995. It will come as no great surprise to anyone that DG have done the job very well, something that is apparent from the very first note of Nevsky. This is a great sonorous chord, magnificently scored and magnificently reproduced for us here. As far as the recording goes all the way through, I found myself ticking off the pluses. The enunciation of the LSO chorus is admirably clear: not a hint of distortion in the cacophonies featured in The Battle on the Ice or (slightly less so) at various points in the Scythian Suite: the distant trumpet in Kije may or not be too distant for your taste but it is very clear; and the cornet that gets the famous tune for Kije's wedding (first cousin to Peter's tune in Peter and the Wolf) has the right brashness to it. Is the solo voice in The Field of the Dead slightly backward? Debatable again. This may well have been intended as realistic concert-hall balance rather than the forward in-your-ear engineering that was so popular as lately as the 70's.

How one is going to rate the performances will also depend on a few basic assumptions - as usual, I guess. For instance, do you stress over the issue of authentic Russian style? I can't say that I do, one of my main reasons being that authentic national styles do not stay authentic indefinitely, but develop and change over the decades. If nobody had told me who the artists were here I would certainly have known that I was not listening to Mravinsky and the Leningrad Phil. On the other hand, Gergiev and the Kirov these days do not sound much like Mravinsky either, indeed it is quite arguable that they sound more like Abbado and his western bands. If the music is good enough and the interpreters are good enough it will be a matter of the various cultures shedding different lights on the music, much as sculpture or architecture can be viewed in different lights. I actually believe that there is a danger in Abbado's training, and the danger is that it can all turn out too smoothed-over and homogenised. The risk is not that some new and foreign style is foisted on the music but that there can come to be a generalised one-style-fits-all. Anyway, this slight worry stayed at the back of my mind in listening to this disc, and I am not seriously in doubt of the 5-star rating.

The performances are thoroughly recommendable, particularly to newcomers to this music. The real masterpiece is the great cantata Alexander Nevsky, and as I have said already you will be given the right impression from note one. The only real question mark in my mind here is the mezzo-soprano soloist. She sings her sad song most affectingly and expressively, but this is not my idea of a great voice, and this is my idea of a little too much vibrato. I don't really have a clear opinion regarding how `highlighted' this solo should be, but what was obtruding itself on my thoughts was the solo in Brahms's Requiem as sung on the Tennstedt set by Jessye Norman. I like to think that this is not trying to rival that, because it would be no contest if it were.

The Scythian Suite goes just fine for me. This started life as a ballet score, reminiscent quite often of the Rite of Spring, which it may have been trying to emulate. In particular I like the tempo chosen for the Dance of the Spirits of Darkness. This is marked `allegro sostenuto', which says to me that it should not be too fast, and the galumphing effect is the way I like the piece to be handled.

Kije would be better spelt, Russian-style, as Kizhe, because that would make it clear how the nonexistent lieutenant came into existence through a simple error in word-division. The unusual `name' caught the eye of the Tsar, and from that point on people were panicking around to try to provide him with a life-story in case the Tsar asked any more questions. It all began as a film score apparently, and I should say that is all any of us need to know about the programme in order to enjoy the crisp and smart music.

Not many things are perfect, and no mild reservations that I may have about this set give me any misgiving in awarding all 5 stars. There is a liner-note, and it is rather a pity that it wastes so much of its brief column-allocation in trying to tell us what to admire. What I find admirable I have just tried to explain, and I can summarise it by saying that this is a well-engineered and highly professional reissue of well-directed and highly professional performances.

...despite being performed by an Italian conductor with a British orchestra and choir. I fell in love with this version of "Alexander Nevsky" the first time I heard it and return to it again and again, despite the claims of other interpreters. The word "cantata" conjures up a rather more prim and sedate impression than applies to this epic score; this is music which needs grabbing by the scruff of the neck and I am pleased to observe that here the LSO seem inspired, as they often were, by Abbado's direction. I am particularly impressed by the way they capture a different mood and atmosphere to characterise the warring parties: the Crusaders sound suitably barbaric and alien such that the Western listener will find himself emotionally loyal to the Russian patriots, rather than its assorted enemies, whether or not they intone Latin and call themselves Christians. I am not a Russian speaker but the London Symphony Chorus sound convincing to me and I do not think their attack and energy can be faulted. Some might prefer a younger, more vulnerable-sounding singer than Elena Obratsova, but her beautiful, haunting singing as singing per se is mightily impressive. To me, she embodies both the soul of a nation in mourning and the proud grief of a single woman who will die an old maid.

The searing, keening wails which evoke the devastation caused by the Mongol hordes in the opening bars are marvellously chilling; similarly, the fear and tension Abbado generates in the opening of "The Battle on the Ice" is quite extraordinary; you do not need to have seen Eisenstein's film to picture these scenes. The immediate emotional impact and appeal of this music make it an ideal introduction to Prokofiev, all the more so when coupled with two such contrasting works as the "Scythian" and "Lieutenant Kijé" suites, here played superbly (the wry, gentle charms of the latter serving to balance the wildness of the other two works). This is music which transcends any crude attempt to categorise it merely as a film score or propaganda. Most preceding reviews chime with mine; I simply do not understand the one or two dissenting voices who find it "bloodless" and label the sound "a little lifeless". If anything, the DG analogue sound is a little over-bright but it matches the young Abbado's taut, thrilling interpretation.

This is a must for any fan of tbe music
of Prokofiev. The cantat from the film
"Alexander Nevsky" is well perfomed by the
London Symphony Orchestra who is well suited
for the task. The cantata reaches a sublime point
when the solo for solo for mezzo-soprano sung by Elena
Obratsova. Also in this recording we hear Prokifiev's
Scythian Suite, as performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
under maestro Abbado. Also here is the suite from the
film score: "Lieutenant Kije". Here a prominent solo part
in different moments in the Suite is performed
by trumpeter: Adolph Herseth. The music was recorded beetween
1978 and 1980, indeed a five star classic.

In "Alexander Nevsky," Prokofiev was challenged to match the cinematic genius of Sergei Eisenstein. The result is a score that works both as a grand sound track and as an integral part of the epic story of Nevsky and the Russian people. One hears it long after the film ends.

In "Kije," Prokofiev evokes a more folk-like feel, with less sweeping grandure, but with as much splendor. Listeners may recognize some of the Kije themes that have been borrowed by contemporary artists such as Sting and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. "Troika" in particular is memorable and stirring.