Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty Suite, Romeo & Juliet

Conductor Seiji Ozawa elicits one of the Boston Symphony's more enthusiastic and sincerely committed performances of the last 20 years in this solid rendition of Tchaikovsky's timeless but often sloppily performed masterpiece. The beloved "character dances" are performed with the kind of style and exceptional ensemble precision worthy of one of the world's most mature and capable orchestras. --D.V.

From Russia with Music

It is quite enjoyable to hear the National Philharmonic of Russia performing compositions by the country's musical heroes, and Vladimir Spivakov does a first-rate job of conducting. The first treat is Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Three Wonders," a march from the opera Tsar Sultan, which is beautiful, sparkly, and simply wondrous in the high registers. The flute and harp passage is ethereal, the strings are vast and singing, and each nuance of feeling is conveyed.

The much beloved fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet is Tchaikovsky's contribution to the album. The music builds in urgency, with fast passages played with great energy and vigor, and there is much emotion, as is fitting for the tale of the star-crossed lovers. The famous love theme is first heard in the low strings in a most elegant and restrained fashion, but when it returns it is full and lush: one can hear all the details, like the triplets under the strings. The string instruments play with perfect attacks and they are full of punch when necessary.

This is an orchestra that is perfect and precise with its timing, but its artistry is what captures the listener. Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, are each unique. The first features violently bowed passages and very 20th-century harmonies, while the second is a lovely waltz with more interesting tonalities than 19th century waltzes in its lush orchestration. The orchestra's sense of timing and tension within the lines here is superb. The third dance is moody yet bright at the beginning, and the piece has a fairytale-like quality, a rather programmatic feel. The concluding work is Three Russian Songs for Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 41, and Rachmaninov truly gets wonderful colors out of the orchestra that complement the voices.

Particularly enjoyable are the very modern-sounding string melody and harmonies in the first song, and the almost reverential quality of the second song: there is none of Rachmaninov's over-the-top Romanticism here. The last song is haunting with a march-like, militaristic feel; brief and austere, there are echoes of Carmina Burana not likely to escape the listener. Spivakov and his orchestra give a marvelous performance. The treble is certainly favored on this recording, which is sometimes advantageous and sometimes not. Another criticism of the recording quality is that the sound is rendered a bit flat, needing more ring or reverb. --allmusic.com

Tchaikovsky & Medtner: First Piano Concertos

“Yevgeny Sudbin's performance here fairly explodes with imagination, feeling and desire. Here, one feels, is a pianist hungry to test himself intellectually and emotionally as well as technically” --Gramophone Magazine

“His stunning virtuosity and the sensitive interaction with the conductor and orchestra really does the talking.” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2008

Gramophone Awards 2007
Finalist - Concerto

“To describe 26-year-old Yevgeny Sudbin as music's brightest young star pianist is in a sense to do him a disservice. For he is above all an artist, and here in his eagerly awaited concerto debut on disc he gives us a Tchaikovsky First of spine-tingling brilliance, poetry and vivacity. This is never the Tchaikovsky you have always known, but an arrestingly novel rethink with the concentration on mercurial changes of mood and direction.

Here, amazingly, is one of the most familiar of all concertos rekindled in all its first glory, brimming over with zest and shorn of all the clichés that have adhered to it over the years.
In the first movement Sudbin's octaves ring out like a giant carillon, while the Andantino's central prestissimo becomes in such extraordinary hands a true firefly scherzo. Not even Cherkassky at his finest possesed a more elfin sense of difference or caprice. And to think that all this and more is accomplished without the lift, or hindrance, of a major competition success.

Medtner's massive First Concerto, too, could hardly be played with a more burning clarity and commitment. Medtner's music remains formidably inaccessible, despite displaying the outward trappings of Romantic rhetoric yet Sudbin clearly believes in every note and his playing evinces, as on live occasions, a rare sense of affection. Such poetry is confirmed in his encore, his own transcription of Medtner's song Liebliches Kind! It only remains to add that BIS's balance and sound are of demonstration quality and that the São Paulo SO under John Neschling sound as if influenced by neighbouring Rio's carnival spirit, so infectiously do they respond to their radiant soloist.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Brahms & Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 3 and 6 "Pathétique"

“Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" is a powerfully emotional piece under any baton, but in this shattering interpretation Bashmet digs down to its darkest depths to reveal its true Slavic soul. And his young players, all graduates of the Moscow Conservatoire, bring a real freshness to Brahms's Symphony No 3, racing through the opening allegro and dancing through the third movement with sunny insouciance.” --The Observer, 8th May 2011

Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra, Yuri Bashmet

Yuri Bashmet is one of the greatest viola players of our time, was born on 24 January 1953. He has appeared all over the world with the leading conductors and orchestras in this capacity and has a large discography. He is an ICA artist and is here featured as one of ICA's Live series as a conductor.

Bashmet began his conducting activity in 1985. In 1992, he re-organised The State Symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya (founded in 1990) featuring some of the most talented young musicians of Russia who are graduates and postgraduate students of the Moscow Conservatoire.

Bashmet became Chief Conductor in 2002. The orchestra performs in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and has toured extensively abroad, also recording for EMI Classics and Sony Classics. The orchestra has been conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Valeri Gergiev amongst others.

David Nice in his booklet notes commented, ‘So it was with some amazement that I heard these performances by an orchestra many of us will not have heard of outside Russia’ ……‘A certain lean and hungry approach that’s never for a moment ascetic, inform much of what we hear in these razor-sharp performances of core symphonic repertoire’. Of the Brahms interpretation, Nice noted,’Mravinsky- like are the implicit force of the opening and the absolute fidelity to dynamics and controlled power’. Of the Tchaikovsky, he went on to say, ‘Mravinsky’s interpretation never lost its freshmness and this one runs it close in in that respect’.

Tchaikovsky: Adagios

The Adagios series is an attractively packaged series of beautiful music themed to suit those quieter moments in life. Tchaikovsky Adagios is the perfect CD for those who would like to purchase an introduction to the music of Tchaikovsky and have a collection of his most soulful Adagios in one easy collection. Including performances from Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty among others. The album features various solo pieces & movements from favourite Tchaikovsky recordings.

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos, Concert Fantasy

Pletnev, has the kind of technique which makes for clarity where others have to fudge, his touch is full of colour and spontaneous inflexion, and he can spring surprises without breaking the musical thread. He brings a lovely romantic suppleness to the middle movement, plus a genuine virtuoso fantasy in the prestissimo; and the finale is consistently creative.

Theme russe

“The Kuss Quartet's new record, 'Theme russe', consists mostly of a number of appetising morsels, not so much a meal as hors d'oeuvres...Tchaikovsky provides the only substantial work, his First Quartet, played with a lively dance lilt in the Scherzo and a gentle eloquence with the arrangement of a genuine Ukrainian folksong” --Gramophone Magazine, July 2012

“An intelligent, rewarding and well-recorded programme from this superb German-based quartet. The main work, Tchaikovsky's first quartet, comes at the end and is one of the finest recent performances on disc.” --Classical Music, 21st April 2012 *****

An enchanting programme of Russian music for string quartet from the acclaimed Kuss Quartet. The multiple-composer 'Variations on a Russian folk song' has composers such as Scriabin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov and Lyadov rub shoulders with lesser-known names such as Vitols, Blumenfeld, Ewald, Winkler, Sokolov and Artsybuschev – each composer contributing a variation.

Selections from Tchaikovsky’s 'Album for the Young' frame two 20th-century works: Stravinsky’s effervescent 'Concertino', and Schnittke’s spare and sombre 'Canon in memoriam Igor Stravinsky'. • Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular First String Quartet concludes an ingeniously constructed programme.

Tchaikovsky: 18 Pieces For Solo Piano

"Mikhail Pletnev has always shown tremendous sympathy for the music of Tchaikovsky: as a conductor he's made some very fine symphonic recordings, but it's the pianist Pletnev whose devotion to the composer's cause is most gratifying. He plays these rarely encountered works with his customary flair, imbuing every note with real passion and understanding. In the course of this live Zurich recording, Pletnev brings these 18 miniatures vividly to life." --Gramophone

Gramophone Magazine
Editor's Choice - July 2005

Penguin Guide
Rosette Winner

BBC Music Magazine
Instrumental Choice - July 2005

“Mikhail Pletnev's persuasive 1986 recording of Tchaikovsky's 18 Morceaux for Melodiya was unfortunately hampered by strident sound and an ill-tuned piano. Happily, a state-of-the-art situation prevails in this new live recording for Deutsche Grammophon, extending, of course, to Pletnev's own contributions. His caring, characterful and technically transcendent way with this cycle casts each piece in a three-dimensional perspective that honours the composer's letter and spirit beyond the music's 'salon' reputation, while making the most of its pianistic potential. The results are revelatory, akin to, say, Ignaz Friedman's illuminating re-creations of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words.

The Fifth Morceau, 'Meditation', demonstrates the Pletnev-Tchaikovsky chemistry at its most sublime. The melodies are firmly projected yet flexibly arched over the bar-lines, as if emerging from different instruments, culminating in a febrile central climax that gently dissipates into some of the most ravishing trills on record. In No 8, 'Dialogue', Pletnev elevates Tchaikovsky's quasi parlando with the type of off-hand skill and pinpoint timing of a master actor who knows just which lines to throw away.

Note, too, the deliciously pointed scales and music-box colorations in No 13, 'Echo rustique'.
Shades of Liszt's Third Liebestraum seep into No 14, 'Chant élégiaque', in what amounts to a masterclass in how to sustain long melodies against sweeping accompaniments. A stricter basic pulse throughout No-9, 'Un poco di Schumann', might have made the dotted rhythms and two strategically placed ritenutos more obviously Schumannesque, yet there's no denying the inner logic the looser treatment communicates.

There's extraordinary virtuosity behind the musical insights. For example, the interlocking octaves in the coda to No-7, 'Polacca de concert', are unleashed with Horowitz- like ferocity and not a trace of banging. The rapid, vertigoinducing triplet runs in No 10, 'Scherzo- fantaisie', could scarcely be more even and controlled.

Pletnev is all over the final, unbuttoned trepak in grand style, and he certainly makes the glissandos swing. A fresh, unfettered account of Chopin's C sharp minor Nocturne is offered as an encore to this urgently recommended recital.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony · The Voyevoda

“This is top-quality sound and playing - at bargain price, too.” --BBC Music Magazine, November 2008 ****

“Petrenko's Manfred emerges from the gothic greys of the opening wind chorale to vent his heartache in an emotive surge of string sound. But the real miracle of this first movement is the vision of idealised love emerging so tenderly… The palest clarinet against muted tremolando strings takes us directly to the heart of the matter, and Petrenko and his orchestra don't disappoint.” --Gramophone Magazine, January 2009

“All praise to the budget label Naxos for signing a deal with the [RLPO] and their Russian wizard for a series of major recordings….[Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony] presents abundant evidence of the orchestra’s new glory…Throughout, the orchestra’s ensemble spirit is so tight that you could cut yourself on the music’s edges. ... Watch out for more Petrenko magic on Naxos.” --The Times

“Petrenko's Manfred emerges from the gothic greys of the opening wind chorale to vent his heartache in an emotive surge of string sound. And to ensure that we've grasped the measure of his despair, he repeats himself.

Petrenko's Byronic petulance makes something really stirring of the self-loathing – Tchaikovsky's as much as that of Byron's anti-hero. But the real miracle of this first movement is the vision of idealised love emerging so tenderly in what one might normally call the development. The palest clarinet against muted tremolando strings takes us directly to the heart of the matter, and Petrenko and his orchestra don't disappoint. Likewise in the epic coda, where anguish is again writ large in overreaching horns and trumpets. No superfluous tam-tam, thankfully.

The dazzling apparitions of the second movement's light-catching waterfall are sharply etched, and if Petrenko has a rather leisurely idea of what constitutes Andante con moto in the third movement, he can't be blamed for loving this vintage Tchaikovsky melody too much. The playing, again, is lovely. Petrenko also keeps his head in the inferno of the finale, emphasising Tchaikovsky the classicist in the hard-working fugue. The 'phantom' organ, though impressively caught here, gets no better, but is quickly forgotten amid the serenity of the final pages.

The opening pages of The Voyevoda seem to suggest a psychological summit meeting between Manfred and Hermann from The Queen ofSpades. Its galloping obsessiveness ratchets up the torment again. The bass clarinet gives everyone the evil eye; no wonder Tchaikovsky tried to destroy it. This is impressive – and, at Naxos's pricing, not to be missed.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“it's to the credit of Vassily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic...that there isn't a single moment in this performance when one wishes for the cuts that were once routinely inflicted on the score. Petrenko makes every bar count, even in the slow movement...the delicacy of the RLPO's playing here, and in the gossamer scherzo that precedes it, is exceptional.” --The Guardian, 17th October 2008 ****

MP3 320 · 153 MB

Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty (The Complete Ballet)

"That Pletnev knows and loves this score was already obvious from his own piano arrangements of parts of it, and their recordings, and if ever proof was needed of the pianist's ability to transfer completely intact to the orchestra his own special brand of fantasy and superfine articulacy, this is it.

Hardly a minute passes without one's ear being enchanted by an affective gesture of the utmost precision, poise and sensitivity (all the various solos are superbly done); and significantly, the now-familiar Pletnev ideal of the tactfully and revealingly balanced tutti does not result in anticlimax, as it did in some of the symphonies.

If you need convincing, try the last ten minutes of Act 2 - a symphonic impression of the 100-year sleep, owing not a little to Wagner in its methods and to something of the magical workings of Tchaikovsky's own sea music for The Tempest - and ask yourself if you have ever heard it as atmospherically shaded; the subtle glints of Tchaikovsky's wonderful orchestration as well caught; or the transition from static contemplation, through the kiss, to genuinely joyful activity, as well-gauged. A very special combination of all the right choices made as regards dynamics, tempo and differentiation of mood and, like so much else in this performance, a scene whose potential I cannot recall having been as fully realized as it is here". --Gramophone Magazine

"Pletnev's is a performance of individuality and high quality. It is a strongly narrative and dramatic account that has tenderness and much the same virtuosity that Pletnev exhibits at the keyboard. The articulation is pretty dazzling throughout and there is plenty of wit in the Act III Divertimenti. The recording is very good, wide in dynamic range and well-balanced." --Rosette Penguin Guide

2 CD · MP3 320 · 343 MB

Shostakovich & Tchaikovsky: Trios

Wow! This is music making on a cosmic scale. You may hear some jaded critic offer up the following generic comment about this release: "These three players, gathered together for only the second time, naturally can't equal the subtle give and take of more established chamber ensembles." Bull. All three artists rank among the most inspirational and experienced chamber players of our time, and here they set the notes on fire in performances of shattering intensity, improvisational spontaneity, and (in the Tchaikovsky) Herculean grandeur.

Argerich's performance of the concerto-like piano part of the Tchaikovsky Trio is especially impressive; she seems to know instinctively when to dominate the proceedings and when to let her partners take over; and the final "Theme and Variations"--a huge movement half an hour in length--seldom has sounded so cohesive and meaningful. As to the Shostakovich, well, what can I say? This is one of the most profoundly moving experiences in music, and how well this trio knows it!

The three players find the perfect tempo for the third movement Passacaglia, then build the tragic finale as inexorably as fate itself. These beautifully recorded performances are special in every way, as much an event as the concert itself must have been. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

MP3 320 · 172 MB

Tchaikovsky: Symphonies No 4, 5 & 6 'Pathétique'

These three symphonies are Tchaikovsky's most popular by far - with equal doses of excitement and gorgeous melodies.

The Fourth begins with a brassy "fate" theme that flows into an extended yet stunningly concentrated movement. The Fifth, too, opens with a fate motive, but this time from the dark depths of the orchestra. The Sixth, know as Pathétique is the most inconsolable -- and beautiful -- of all. Emerging from even gloomier mists than the Fifth, the opening movement charts a path of psychological struggle and takes in one of Tchaikovsky's most achingly lovely melodies.

"All three performances convey an unfailing sense of dramatic imperative; all three display a suppleness of phrasing that comes from working with voices … In the Fourth Symphony, I am entirely sure that Pappano and his orchestra have crossed that indefinable threshold to achieve something exceptional." --Gramophone Magazine

“…Pappano has marshalled his forces with magnificent discipline and even surpasses Mravinsky in the intensity of some of his piano and pianissimo sequences. There's no more purposeful or varied Fifth on disc… Climaxes always blaze, with sustained tension keeping hysteria at bay...” --BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 *****

2 CD · MP3 320 · 296 MB

Gautier Capuçon plays Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev

“Gautier Capuçon and Valery Gergiev take both works very darkly and seriously. This furrowed-browed approach makes their Symphony-Concerto- …unlike any other. No one manages the first movement's withdrawal into dreams more magically than Gergiev with hushed Mariinsky strings, and Capuçon quickly follows pensive suit.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2010 ****

“Even in this crowded field Gautier Capuçon stands out as exceptional, majoring in elegant, pure, singing tone and long lyrical phrasing rather than waspish attack...there are grand and glorious things here” --Gramophone Magazine, April 2010

“Capuçon and Gergiev cleave through histrionic superficiality to produce a reading that bites but never barks.” Michael Quinn, bbc.co.uk, 16th February 2010

“Gautier Capuçon’s French sensibility is ideally suited to Tchaikovsky’s nostalgic backward glance to the era of his favourite composer, Mozart. He also digs deep into Prokofiev’s mid-20th-century angst” Sunday Times, 13th December 2009 ****

“...you can't help but be seduced by the passion and irony of [Capucon's] playing. Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra bring terrific drama and fire to it as well.” The Guardian, 11th February 2010 ****

“The Mozart-inspired Tchaikovsky piece is dispatched with a light touch, Capuçon's bow dancing over the strings but retaining a sureness of tone.” The Independent, 1st January 2010 **

“Capuçon [plays] with a blend of impeccable taste, Romantic ardour and technical aplomb...Whether quizzical, rapturous, pensive or demonstrative, Capuçon has full measure of [the music] here in a performance of impressive stature.” The Telegraph, 29th January 2010 *****

“Mellifluous tones pour from Gautier Capuçon’s cello, even when he’s partnered by conductor Valery Gergiev, usually a firebrand.” The Times, 16th January 2010 ***

MP3 320 · 132 MB

Tchaikovsky · Myaskovsky: Violin Concertos

Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - May 2003
Penguin Guide Rosette Winner

"The young and hugely impressive Vadim Repin makes his Philips début and in the company of that musical dynamo, Valery Gergiev, and his stunning Kirov Orchestra. The Tchaikovsky is well known and these performers give a fine, pungent reading, but it is the magnificent concerto by Myaskovsky that makes this disc a must. Composed in 1938, the work was first performed in Moscow in January 1939 by the 30-year-old David Oistrakh. It's a real stunner - do hear it." --Rosette (highest rating) Penguin Stereo Guide

“It's the Myaskovsky that really makes this disc a 'must-have'. His Violin Concerto was premiered by David Oistrakh in Leningrad in 1939. As with Tchaikovsky's Concerto, the opening tutti plays for less than a minute and the slow movement is touchingly lyrical. The rather melancholy first movement is built on a grand scale and includes an expansive cadenza where Repin's mastery is virtually the equal of Oistrakh's. It's forceful music, epic in scale and earnestly argued, the sort of piece that Gergiev thrives on.

Listening to Repin's Tchaikovsky Concerto (his second recording of the work) confirms just how far he's journeyed in a few years.

Tone projection is stronger, attack more aggressive and his solo demeanour seems better focused than before, far more confident and spontaneous. Mixed in with these improvements are one or two affectations, but it's a cracking performance, one of the best from the younger generation. The recording sounds like a digital update of the sort of blowsy inyour- face sonics typical of the first stereo recordings of the late 1950s. Nevertheless, a fabulous disc.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

MP3 320 · 156 MB