Prokofiev's Paddy Wagon

Started by Danny, April 07, 2007, 09:29:23 AM

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Nick

Quote from: Greg on March 23, 2010, 02:50:49 PM
I'm really considering buying this one, maybe in the upcoming months:



http://www.chandos.net/CD_Notes.asp?CNumber=CHAN%2010166

Not only do you get the only recording of the op.98 National Anthem for the Soviet Union, but also the only complete recording of the op.69 Four Marches. That'd be awesome if they had chose his work as the official Anthem... oh, wait, maybe not...  ::)

Hi, Greg,

In the middle of medical school work at the moment, but I rather like that Op. 69 stuff, even though it isn't top-drawer Prokofiev. I'm particularly fond of the Op. 98.

There's a couple of things that you're going to have an extremely hard time finding in order to get to 135, chief among them being the Op.7 songs for women's choir and orchestra (lovely stuff, part. Op.7, No.2). In a couple of weeks, I'll be more able to help you out, perhaps.

Nick

Quote from: Greg on March 08, 2010, 03:41:11 PM
Anyone into collecting rare Prokofiev CDs?

This is at the top of my list:
http://prokofiev.org/recordings/album.cfm?aid=000931

4 works I've never even heard on one CD, one that I have (i think another recording of), and one that I have heard and liked from another recording, but don't have.

Others I'd like:
http://prokofiev.org/recordings/album.cfm?aid=000495
http://prokofiev.org/recordings/album.cfm?aid=000557
http://prokofiev.org/catalog/workall.cfm?WorkID=17
http://prokofiev.org/recordings/album.cfm?aid=000596

which would be most of his works that I don't have already.

That Ashkenazy disc is extremely expensive, but it's likely to fill up a lot of holes in things that you don't have. The Year 1941, Op.90 is the best among them, but I like Thirty Years, too. Never been a fan of Seven, They are Seven. More atmospheric than substantive, and I'd levy the same criticism at the Scythian Suite.

The Ballade for a Boy Who Remained Unknown is keeper.

greg

Quote from: Nick on May 12, 2010, 08:52:21 PM
There's a couple of things that you're going to have an extremely hard time finding in order to get to 135, chief among them being the Op.7 songs for women's choir and orchestra (lovely stuff, part. Op.7, No.2).
Oh yeah, it is a real rarity... now that I do have a recording of op.7 no.2, that's probably the hardest to find down- now just easier stuff to go.  ;D


QuoteThat Ashkenazy disc is extremely expensive, but it's likely to fill up a lot of holes in things that you don't have.
Yes, this disc helped.  8)
My favorite might still be the Summer Night Suite on here, but I've only listened to it once so far...


It is one heck of a task collecting all this guy's music...  :P

matti

This clip with Prokofiev playing the piano and talking about his musical activities (in the late 40's?) has probably been sent here before. But just in case:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVgwaFUfBu8

greg


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006JN9N/lyrkid-20

Just listened to this one again today...

Most underrated opera I know of, not to mention one of the best I've heard. Hopefully, the whole thing will actually be recorded one day.

Some of the themes in this opera are completely delicious, and it even uses the theme of the op.99 March in Bb around the end.

Too bad it's virtually unknown.

Dancing Divertimentian

#565
Quote from: Greg on May 19, 2010, 02:27:20 PM

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006JN9N/lyrkid-20

Most underrated opera I know of, not to mention one of the best I've heard.

This is one Prokofiev opera I haven't heard. But I can definitely believe your description of it as high quality stuff - that's my experience with the other Prokofiev operas I have (five of them).

QuoteToo bad it's virtually unknown.

I wish it weren't true but that's pretty much the fate of all of Prokofiev's operas. :(


Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

greg

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 20, 2010, 04:03:20 PM
I wish it weren't true but that's pretty much the fate of all of Prokofiev's operas. :(
This one has it the worst, too... not only was it written to please the Communist party only to get rejected, but after all of that is over, it can easily be dismissed as a suck-up hackjob that only got one incomplete recording, despite the quality.


Crazy!  :o ;D

Dancing Divertimentian

Quote from: Greg on May 20, 2010, 06:58:38 PM
This one has it the worst, too... not only was it written to please the Communist party only to get rejected, but after all of that is over, it can easily be dismissed as a suck-up hackjob that only got one incomplete recording, despite the quality.


Crazy!  :o ;D

Wouldn't you just know it...a quality composer writing a quality piece yet no one within earshot will acknowledge its goodness - all because of one bias or another. Sheesh!! $:) ;D



Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

Herman

Quote from: Greg on May 04, 2010, 07:17:17 PM
I wish Richter had recorded all of them- that way, you could probably say, "just get the Richter complete set."

That would be an oxymoron. Richter virtually never recorded a complete set of anything by anyone.

Herman

I have been listening to Prokofiev's Fifth Piano Concerto, a veritable glissando circus, very Parisian. It's rather strange to think this almost cubust kind of work was premiered with Furtwangler, whom we now more associate with Bruckner than madcapering Prokofiev.

karlhenning

Oh, that is a most curious thought!

I've been listening more to the Quintet Opus 39.

karlhenning

Whew! I've found my Nice book.

Are we just giving up any hope for Volume II?

karlhenning

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 28, 2010, 11:25:13 AM
Whew! I've found my Nice book.

Are we just giving up any hope for Volume II?


I think I may have figured out why we should give up hope. A pity, for this book is largely a success, IMO.

karlhenning

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 05, 2010, 06:36:31 AM

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 05, 2010, 05:52:42 AM
Another revisitation!

Сергей Сергеевич [Sergei Sergeyevich]
Symphony № 2 in d minor, Opus 40 (1924-25)
SNO
Järvi
(recorded at SNO Centre, Glasgow City, Dec 1984)






Prokofiev – The Complete Symphonies


The Second is my favorite of the Prokofiev symphonies roughly half the time. Oh, I think I oughtn't to have used that adverb . . . for we start out with some roughness, which just a little rehearsal would have addressed.  This symphony is one of those in this set which suffer from the conductor's jet-setting, and the press among Chandos to provide Product for the Prokofiev Centenary season. It's not a disaster — an orchestra this good, and a conductor this (normally) competent will never sink to disaster — but between knowing that this team should be capable of better, and the superior versions of the Opus 40 which Ozawa and Polyansky have given us, this account of the Second is a disappointment as embassage for a piece which has too few friends even among musicians.

Quote from: jhar26 on August 05, 2010, 06:27:33 AM
I'm a bit disappointed with this set. It got some nice reviews - better than the Ozawa set actually, which is what motivated me to buy it. Maybe it depends a bit on what you're looking for but I find most interpretations rather brutal, short on lyricism and not witty enough. I nevertheless enjoy listening to it, but it could have been better.

I can echo you . . . it gets many nice reviews, but I was aware mostly of disappointments in it back when I first owned it.  I've since re-purchased it, because I wanted to revisit it. I still have many cavils with it, but since I have other recordings which do Prokofiev's symphonies better justice, I can live with some of the Järvi disappointments here.  The Ozawa set I find much stronger.  I find it funny that in some of the review-o-sphere, opinion is so partisna between these two.  Järvi has a lot of emotional support out there!

The Second is actually the last nail (as it were) in my disappointment with the Järvi set.  I had already registered dissatisfaction with the Seventh (for but two things: one place where the band is just not together; and the trivializing 'up-beat' ending, though of course one can make the case that this alternate ending should be documented).  Now, at the time when I first owned the Järvi box (and it was that bulky jewel case back in the day, with dreadful cover art . . . the reissue package design is derived from the same style, but tones it down) I didn't know the Second well (who did? we may ask).  And all I knew of the piece before hearing Järvi's recording, was what I had read in Harlow Robinson's biography of the composer . . . in which Robinson had little good to say of the piece.  So, we might say, all that Järvi did, was reinforce a negative impression of the symphony which I had absorbed from Robinson.

Enter the Ozawa set on DG.  I found the Second Symphony immediately electrifying.  There is exactly nothing wrong with this piece! was my direct thought.  Where did I get the idea that this piece was a turkey? Well, from Robinson and "confirmed" by Järvi.

So, that experience retroactively affirmed disappointment in the Järvi set on Chandos, because his recording in particular, in its timing as part of the flood of Prokofiev recordings (and the volume of that flood was no doubt to blame for the relaxed QC of Järvi, who is not at all a bad conductor, really) . . . his was a recording which ought to have made a case for the piece, instead of phoning it in.

not edward

I would totally agree with your comment on the merits of Jarvi's 2nd. The performances of the 2nd and 3rd are amongst the worst things in the set; grinding and one-dimensional. (I was also very disappointed in the two versions of the 4th, as Karl says, the RSNO and Jarvi were clearly phoning it in, and a very unsatisfactory comparison to his fine account of the Prodigal Son.)

I think of all the symphonies, the 6th comes off best in Jarvi's set, but it's no competition for the legendary Mravinsky recording (not that I've heard any recording that is).

To give Jarvi credit, I think these two discs are very valuable additions to the Prokofiev catalogue, and he deserves a lot of credit for reviving the outrageous October Cantata in the West:

"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

karlhenning

Thanks for that suggestion, Edward!  Agreed in spades on the Cantata . . . and without any disloyalty to Jurowski, another fine account of the Opus 46 can only be a good thing.  (I don't think I know the Divertissement at all, so there's a bonus.)

not edward

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 05, 2010, 07:51:49 AM
Thanks for that suggestion, Edward!  Agreed in spades on the Cantata . . . and without any disloyalty to Jurowski, another fine account of the Opus 46 can only be a good thing.  (I don't think I know the Divertissement at all, so there's a bonus.)
I think the Divertissement is criminally neglected, to be honest. It's easily my favourite from amongst the "lighter" orchestral Prokofiev (and, strangely enough, much of it comes from the movements of the ballet Trapeze that weren't used in the Wind Quintet). The two works are very different in tone, though--almost mirror images.

I wasn't so taken with the Symphonic Song, or the performance of said work, but I think of it more as a bonus given the rest of what's on the disc.
"I don't at all mind actively disliking a piece of contemporary music, but in order to feel happy about it I must consciously understand why I dislike it. Otherwise it remains in my mind as unfinished business."
-- Aaron Copland, The Pleasures of Music

greg

Quote from: edward on August 05, 2010, 11:26:16 AM
I wasn't so taken with the Symphonic Song, or the performance of said work, but I think of it more as a bonus given the rest of what's on the disc.
I think the best thing about it is that it's actually on record, and not just on a rare LP.  :D

karlhenning

Quote from: edward on August 05, 2010, 11:26:16 AM
I think the Divertissement is criminally neglected, to be honest. It's easily my favourite from amongst the "lighter" orchestral Prokofiev (and, strangely enough, much of it comes from the movements of the ballet Trapeze that weren't used in the Wind Quintet). The two works are very different in tone, though--almost mirror images.

I wasn't so taken with the Symphonic Song, or the performance of said work, but I think of it more as a bonus given the rest of what's on the disc.

This experience underscores the dangers to me of Arkivmusic having a sale (as they do currently on Chandos).  They deliver to me with breathtaking rapidity.  It was Thursday when I pulled the trigger on this, and here it's come in today.

karlhenning

#579
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 07, 2010, 02:18:21 PM
First Listen!

Сергей Сергеевич [Sergei Sergeyevich]
Symphonic Song, Opus 57 (1933)
SNO
Järvi






Prokofiev – The Prodigal Son, Op. 46, Ballet in Three Scenes by Boris Kochno / Divertimento, Op. 43 / Andante, from Piano Sonata No. 4, Op. 29 bis (Transcription by the Composer for Orchestra) / Symphonic Song, Op. 57 - Neeme Järvi


Do you know, I just listened to this three times, which may seem like an odd way to pass half an hour. I like it (not that I should try to make any case that it is a 'major' work, of course).  The piece was a lot better than I had been led to expect . . . and the second and third hearings were to see if my favorable impression was juts a matter of having expectations of a dud overthrown.

I could see the piece suffering by comparison in the programming of the disc . . . it is not the masterwork which is L'enfant prodigue, and its manner is entirely different.  But I think it benefited in my ears today from my having listened to Fiery Angel.  Not that it's better than Fiery Angel, I don't mean that . . . but there are resonances in manner between the two works.

I was a little surprised (intellectually) to learn that he had written this while yet in France;  I had formed an idea that it was the sort of half-hearted piece he might have turned out after re-patriation to the Soviet Union.

Interesting little bit about the Opus 57 in the David Nice book:


Quote from: David Nice | p.310Just as Prokofiev had by no means committed himself to the Soviet cause in 1933, so his more complex experimentation of recent years had not quite disappeared. 'You must bring a large-scale piece written specifically for us,' Myaskovsky commanded in June, as he looked forward to his friend's autumn visit, adding that the piece in question should be 'symphonic, monumental, clear and — don't be angry, o horror! — cheerful!  "Chanson symphonique" isn't quite for us . . . it lacks that which we mean by monumentalism — a familiar simplicity and broad contours, of which you are extremely capable, but temporarily are carefully avoiding.'  From this we learn that Myaskovsky had already seen Prokofiev's latest major orchestral work, the Symphonic Song (op.57); and he later qualified his opinion by adding that although this could hardly be received as a major statement, Prokofiev should still bring it as he persoinally longed to hear it.