Khachaturian-first complete Spartacus ballet recording (1974)

[Scion7]

           click image to re-size it


Back in - what was it, 1975? - I knew zilch about Aram Khachaturian.   To me, Russian music was Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev.  Maybe a little Borodin but hadn't bought any of his stuff yet.  And had yet to discover the sledgehammer of Shostakovich in 1977.  Today, of course, I've added Scriabin and others.  But in '75 I was a newbie raised on the three B's.   Anywho ... I was listening to the Davidson College radio station around 2 a.m. and they played the end of the first act.  I liked it, and set off in search of it.  Wound up having to call my buddy's-buddy who was the manager of Grapevine Records in Charlotte, NC to order it - this wasn't something anyone was carrying (yet), not even the "classical room" at Grapevine (the mgr there worked hard to keep those racks full of great stuff.)  So I ordered it, and a week later it came in.   Well, when I put it on, I was amazed - these Columbia/Melodiya New York-manufactured surfaces were virtually as quiet as a DG or Philips album - whatever pressing plant they used was blessed on that run!  The notes on the inside box were pretty good.  Performance was dynamic.  Certainly not the greatest ballet music ever written, but it's good stuff - and very, very Russian!  I've added a few other things by the composer since then, but not that much.  He was the "lightweight" amongst Prokofiev and Shostakovich.   

I haven't seen this on CD - but the same group of people re-recorded it for a live CD in 1995 - or that's when it was issued, anyway.  Never heard it.

                from Gramophone  Oct 1976

KHACHATURIAN. Spartacus—Ballet. Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra conducted by Algis Zuraitis.
HMV Melodiya SQ SLS5061 (four records, nas, £10.95). Booklet Included.

Khachaturian's Spartams ballet has had a chequered and somewhat complex history. It was written in the early 1950s to a pre-war scenario by Nicolai Volkov, and successfully mounted by Leonid Jacobsen at the Kirov in 1956. Khachaturian however, rewrote much of the score for Moiseyev's Bolshoi production two years later. The original did not include the "Appian Way" scene in the Second Act, but had a "Saturnalia", which together with three other fragments used in earlier versions but ultimately discarded, occupy the eighth side of the set. Jacobsen's own production at the Bolshoi in the early 1960s shortened the work but was not a success either with Soviet or New York audiences when they saw it during the Bolshoi's 1962 visit. The 1968 version mounted by Yuri Grigorovich discarded much of the original scenario, and it was this production that the Russians brought to London in 1969. Khachaturian also recast the score for this final version, which was published in 1970 and forms the basis for the present set of records. Malcolm Rayment goes into greater detail about the work's provenance in his admirable notes, and also gives a full account of the action, as well as some of the changes imposed in various productions.
London audiences will have had an opportunity to make up their minds about the music itself during the Bolshoi visits, while collectors will have done the same from the excerpts that Khachaturian himself recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic for Decca, part of which was subsequently popularized by the BBC TV series, The Onedin Line (SXL6000, 1/63). Part of the success Spartacus has enjoyed can be attributed to the dearth of three-act ballets since the death of Prokofiev (Britten's Prince of the Pagodas and Henze's Ondine are rare exceptions). Spar tacus is a narrative ballet which affords plenty of opportunity for set pieces, and the score abounds in spectacle. In the First Act there is a slave market scene and an orgy, a triumphant march by Crassus's returning army, and a blindfold gladiatorial contest. A lot of the dances here and in the remainder of the ballet are based on vigorous `oompah' accompaniments over which ideas of varying quality are superimposed. But for all the apparent vitality, the music though brashly full-blooded and overtly passionate, is wanting in real melodic freshness and genuine feeling. The glimpses of poetry are few and brief, and the reminders of Khachaturian at his best are pale. The score has lots of rather obvious colour, applied in the broadest strokes, and there are some theatrically 'effective' passages. But for the most part, it goes through the motions of stock-in-trade romantic ballets without any real freshness of inspiration. Gayaneh strikes me as far more genuine. Not all the music is empty and not all of it is unattractive, but it would be idle to pretend that the score can be divorced from the stage in a way that Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet can.
Many readers may not agree with this verdict and may want to have the complete work on records. Those who do will have no cause for complaint with this admirable presentation. The playing of the Bolshoi orchestra under Algis Zuraitis has great dash and spirit, while the Melodiya engineers have produced a sound picture of exemplary presence and power. The bass is solid and strong with much the same body as they succeeded in capturing in The Stone Flower (SLS5024, 9/75), a superb recording by the way. Detail is well-defined and the balance well-judged, even if occasionally I felt the strings were a shade too forward. In its quadraphonic form, the texture opens out excellently, and the overall effect is undeniably impressive. Surfaces are agreeably smooth.    ~R.L.

The Suite has had many issues on LP and CD - and might be easier to digest for those who don't want to sit through the bland portions where some choreography is going on.