Prokofiev: Symphony No.5 / Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra [Live]

Sergei Prokofiev (Composer), Benjamin Britten (Composer), Gennady Rozhdestvensky (Conductor), Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Gennady Rozhdestvensky
• Composer: Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten
• Audio CD (July 25, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: BBC Legends
• ASIN: B000FI903U
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #460,778 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the great performaces of Prokofiev's fifth, April 11, 2007

By 

LJM (Earth) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prokofiev: Symphony No.5 / Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Audio CD)

This recording features Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra on Cold War tour in the West: the performace of Prokofiev's fifth symphony was caught on tape during a concert in Royal Albert Hall, London, 1971. This BBC Legends CD, featuring that performance, is a most welcome release, because what we have here is nothing but one of the greatest performances of Prokofiev's fifth on record. Rozhdestvensky's masterly understanding of this work is second to none, and the Leningrad Philharmonic plays marvellously. Together with Szell (SONY) and Tennstedt (Hännsler), I take this recording to be one of the essential recordings of this work. Rozhdestvensky emphasizes, correctly, the towering, powerful structure of the symphony, while he also highlights its lyrical qualities. His attention to significant details in this complex score is just amazing.

The recording was made in stereo - vintage analogue and during live performances, but nonetheless with a great deal of detail and presence.

As fill-ups, we get earlier performances with Rozhdestvensky and the Leningraders - Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" and Prokofiev's "Death of Tybalt" from Romeo & Juliet. These pieces were recorded at Usher Hall, Edinburgh, in 1960, and in mono. Especially the Britten guide is of interest, even if it doesn't challenge the composer's own interpretation (Decca).

Strongly recommended, especially for the great Prokofiev fifth!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Prokofiev Fifth Symphony, October 7, 2007

By 

Andre Gauthier - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prokofiev: Symphony No.5 / Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Audio CD)

I recently reviewed a less than satisfying version of the Prokofiev Fifth with James Levine as it was sadly lacking in a balanced harmonic language and the sardonic moments required to give this symphony its backbone. I blamed a lot on the acoustic. Well, this recording with Genady Rozhdestvensky/Leningrad PO on BBC Legends is recorded in 1971 in, of all places, a live Proms Concert at Royal Albert Hall. It comes complete with its 4 second acoustic. The performance is superb and the conservative recording method of the BBC captures the stereo spread of the band along with all of the Albert Hall's marvelous reverberation. I know of no other recording done in quite this way.

Rozhdestvensky is able to peer deeply into the musical language of Prokofiev. Every movement is given a thorough scrubbing with a Russian cleaning brush. In other words, the thick mess that so many have made of this wonderfully varied work has been washed away so that the symphony sounds fresh as a daisy. What magic this conductor pulls out of the Leningrad P.O. Their particular Russian sound is ideal for the music and the conductor's sense of pace is so excellent that I was held captive from start to finish although I had meant only to sample a bit of it on the first hearing. While I still find the Mitropoulos/Vienna a unique experience, this approach to the Prokofiev Fifth is the genuine article and may well be the best available on CD. It is surely a must for a lover of the Fifth. Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" and the fastest "Death of Tybalt" from Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" I've ever heard both come from a live performance in Scotland in 1960, rounding out the CD. While not as majestic as the Symphony, the Britten is respectable; the ballet encore blisters the paint off the walls with the fast bowing of the orchestral strings. Wow!

I doubt this will be around for a long time on the BBC label and therefore I'd rather have it now than have to search for it later. The only caveat is some tape stretching - pitch problems at the very end of the symphony. I think that could easily have been fixed with some good attention. It is fun to hear a roar of applause go up at the end of both Prokofiev pieces. I'm sure that the people standing in the Proms were simply knocked over by the Symphony's performance.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rozhdestvensky is in good form, but the recorded sound can be a problem, March 15, 2011

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Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prokofiev: Symphony No.5 / Britten: Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Audio CD)

Each individual can decide if the five-star brigade is right in proclaiming this live Prokofiev Fifth form 1971 to be great, or as two reviewers claim, definitive. One overlooked fact is the sound, which is distant, somewhat boomy, and marked by a good deal of hall echo. Royal Albert Hall is a vast, domed barn. Usually the BBC engineers make it sound more human scaled, but here it sounds like a barn, especially in the big tuttis of the first movement. Modern recordings reveal much more detail. What I hear in the performance is a bit hit and miss. The first movement is done powerfully but without bombast, which is unusual in Soviet music-making and its insistence on blunt heroism in big orchestral works.

the second movement is actually less pointed than in readings by, say, Bernstein and Karajan; at times the opening section is reticent. But Soviet instincts come out in the later climaxes, and overall one gets the feeling, details aside, that these musicians know Prokofiev's idiom in and out -- theirs isn't a generic "international" approach. The Leningrad Phil. was Mravinsky's orchestra, and they had many intense performances of the Fifth Sym. under their belts. That comes out in the Adagio, which is beautifully heartfelt and swelling. Cool virtuosity is beside the point; under Szell and Levine it dominates the scene. Tozhdestvensky, who was forty and fast rising in his career, had stepped on to an enviable podium, and he isn't a Mravinsky clone. He's at once more gentle and more rustic, giving the impression that the music is opening up, whereas under Mravinsky it was tightly controlled. This openness allows the finale, marked Allegro e giocoso, to sound relaxed and genial. I can't think of another reading that brings out its good humor so much. The fact that the woodwind solos are so recessed is unfortunate, however. the two fillers, Britten's YOung Person's Guide and most especially The Death of Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet are played exuberantly.

Over the years, it has been hard to get a sharp image of Rozdestvensky, the most talented Russian conductor who has turned in the most indifferent, lazy performances when he is out of sorts. But Prokofiev has always been a strong suit, and this gripping Fifth Sym. finds him in very good form.