Vasily Petrenko / Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra MUSSORGSKY Pictures at an Exhibition

Vasily Petrenko is the Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Between 1994 and 1997, Petrenko was Resident Conductor at the St Petersburg State Opera and Ballet Theatre in the Mussorgsky Memorial Theatre. During this time he gained an enormous amount of operatic experience and he now has over 30 operas in his repertoire.

Petrenko is equally at home in symphonic and operatic repertoire. On the symphonic front, he has previously worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony, Swedish Radio, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and NDR Hanover, BBC Wales, Cadaques and Castille y Leon Orchestras in Spain.

A Russian orchestral showcase from Vasily Petrenko and the award willing Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra present a programme of Russian orchestral classics - with some surprises.

Ravel’s brilliant orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Khachaturian’s sumptuously romantic suite from his ballet ‘Spartacus’ with its famous ‘Adagio’ keep company with Kabalevsky’s fizzing overture to his opera ‘Colas Breugnon’ and Schehedrin’s ‘Naughty Limericks plus a wistful Rachmaninov song in beautiful orchestral arrangement.

Anna Gourari ELUSIVE AFFINITY

In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album – her third for ECM -  Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts.  Three suites of contemporary music are heard here.  Alfred Schnittke’s Five Aphorisms (1990) draw impulses from the poetry of his friend Joseph Brodsky.  Rodion Shchedrin’s Diary - Seven Pieces (2002) dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a pianist and composer.  Wolfgang Rihm’s sequence of tombeaux, Zwiesprache (1999) pays tribute to musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, conductor Paul Sacher, and art sociologist Hermann Wiesler. Threaded between the cycles are two Giya Kancheli miniatures drawn from theatre and movie music, as well as Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli-style Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka (1977).  Gourari’s investigation of artistic affinities is framed with Bach’s transcriptions of Venetian composers Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: “Anna Gourari makes these Bach slow movements, too, ours,” Paul Griffiths writes in the liner notes. “And the newer music is cherished and invigorated.”

Ekaterina Mechetina SCHEDRIN - SHAKHIDI

Ekaterina Mechetina’s voyage as a professional artist is relatively young but already rich in events, and one is struck not only by the swift impetuosity of her upward flight to the musical Olympus, but also by her gradual but irresistible advance to the summits of musical mastery. However, there is one factor that stands out in Mechetina’s journey; although she can boast many successful performances at international contests, she does not owe her well-deserved reputation to these. Her secret lies not only in her constantly maturing talent, but also in her keen interest in the broader musical field – and a relentless desire to expand her demanding music well beyond the limits of the typical competition repertoire. This is rare amongst today’s performers.

Her upbringing was typical of many of her contemporaries; she was born into a family of musicians, and very early it became clear that she had inherited the inclinations and gifts of her parents. Her flair for music became evident when she was a young girl and, in fitting with her talents, she became a pupil of the Central School of Music for the Moscow State Conservatory – probably the most renowned school for gifted children in the world where many of today’s world-famous musicians began their first musical steps. After finishing her schooling, where she was taught by T. L. Koloss, she began her studies at the Moscow Conservatory under the tuition of V. P. Ovtchinnikov. For her postgraduate studies, she was taught by the famous Sergey Leonidovich Dorensky. Dorensky’s students have collectively won over one hundred prizes in competitions across three continents – probably a world record! Ekaterina Mechetina’s prize at the Cincinnati Piano Competition was the hundredth…

Mikhail Pletnev / Russian National Orchestra SHCHEDRIN Carmen Suite - Naughty Limericks - The Chimes

By coincidence‚ just before hearing this disc I chanced upon Stan Kenton’s all­Wagner LP from the 1960s (STO2217). ‘File under jazz’ says Capitol’s spine‚ but Kenton’s evocative handling of Tristan’s Prelude is anything but ‘jazzed up’. In fact‚ if you take the OED’s secondary definition of jazz as ‘fantastic designs or vivid patterns’‚ Rodion Shchedrin’s 1967 Carmen Suite is a lot more jazzy than Kenton’s contemporaneous Tristan. It’s also brash‚ gimmicky and more obviously out for effect. And yet the formula sort­of works: strings (here spatially divided) and percussion shuffling hot­foot through some of Bizet’s best tunes.
The Introduction becomes a door chime of the ‘Habanera’‚ the ‘Boléro’ is L’Arlésienne’s ‘Farandole’ (truncated to fit a minute) and ‘Toréador’ brilliantly dispatches the skeleton of Bizet’s original among the pizzicatos‚ without quoting the top line. The eerie scene between the Toreador and Carmen – here Shchedrin’s transcription really does sound very Russian – is based on music from The Fair Maid of Perth‚ but brace your ears for the clatter of bells that follows with the Adagio. You also get the Card Scene‚ the Flower Song and the finale‚ which in this extremely dynamic new recording under Mikhail Pletnev makes a more dramatic impression than Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s good old Melodiya recording. The tempo is brisker‚ and the string choirs clearer‚ but elsewhere Rozhdestvensky’s performance has marginally more ‘umph’. It’s still the most exciting Shchedrin/Bizet on disc‚ though sound­wise‚ this latest recording presents the fuller sound frame.
The fill­ups are fun‚ or at least the ‘Naughty Limericks’ (or ‘Merry Ditties’ as they were once known here) are‚ pure slapstick‚ with rasping trombones and squeeze­box rhythms. The last version I heard was Leonard Bernstein’s in the New York Philharmonic’s newest bumper collection‚ a marvellous performance‚ but Pletnev’s dryer manner also works well. ‘The Chimes’ is less fervid than on Svetlanov’s famous live Melodiya account‚ where the ringing is wilder‚ but the closing pages are very atmospheric.
DG’s recordings (Moscow State Conservatory‚ spring 1998) are more obviously staged for the ‘hi­fi’ market than other Pletnev/Russian National Orchestra recordings from the same stable – especially in Carmen – but the engineering certainly suits the music. It’s worth a spin‚ but to my ears it all sounds terribly dated‚ a bit like one of those flashback TV shows that home in on some random decade from your distant past. The tricks don’t wear terribly well‚ and you can’t say that of Stan Kenton. (Gramophone)

Shchedrin plays SHCHEDRIN

Rodion Shchedrin embarked on a composing career at the dawn of the second half of the 20th century, and since then has been actively creative. Shchedrin is the happy owner of a gift that combines a topical music language with traditional elements of Russian music culture, which let him easily fit in with the global music space and, at the same time, remain an artist with strongly pronounced national attributes of style. While Shchedrin has created remarkable works in virtually all music genres, his relations with piano music are special. A student of the famous professor Yakov Flier, who was a brilliant soloist and teacher, Shchedrin continues the glorious traditions of the Russian school. His concert performances and recordings of his own works have always been bright events, and have attracted the attention of thousands of music lovers.