Rimsky-Korsakov recommendations?

[Florestan]

Sir, I have long considered you to be a Gentleman and a Scholar, and this confirms my belief! I've just picked up that Brilliant set for £4!! Thank you, Andrei.

I'm glad to have been of service, John! And btw, likewise! 

[Elgarian Redux]

Tbh, while Rimsky-Korsakov was a very early acquaintance in my musical exposure ( l can sing Scheherazade in its entirety to anyone brave/ foolish enough to listen ), Antar has somehow eluded me completely... right up to this specific thread.

So I'll catch up with y'all, and post my take on the work.

Besides... magic temptresses? I'm definitely in! 

Look, I don't want to draw you in under false pretences. There is in fact only one magic temptress. BUT she can change into a gazelle at will, and that must count for something.

Seriously, you are in for a such a treat.

[Elgarian Redux]

I'm glad to have been of service, John! And btw, likewise! 

If we're sticklers for accuracy, I suppose I could change my name to John. Or you could call me Alan.
On the other hand, you've mistakenly called me John for years, and there is this thing called tradition and that carries some weight ...

Yr Obd't Serv't, Sir.

[Florestan]

If we're sticklers for accuracy, I suppose I could change my name to John. Or you could call me Alan.
On the other hand, you've mistakenly called me John for years, and there is this thing called tradition and that carries some weight ...

Yr Obd't Serv't, Sir.

Drat! Sorry, Alan! Tbh, I hesitated to call you anything, but eventually took my chance and missed the mark once again.

Note to self: utter "Rimsky, Elgar, Alan" ten times before Pater Noster each night for ten nigths.   

[Elgarian Redux]

Drat! Sorry, Alan! Tbh, I hesitated to call you anything, but eventually took my chance and missed the mark once again.

Note to self: utter "Rimsky, Elgar, Alan" ten times before Pater Noster each night for ten nigths.   

Actually you used to get it right a long time ago, but then I was absent for a few years (you see, I have only myself to blame for all this), and memory is a fickle beast.

[Karl Henning]

Actually you used to get it right a long time ago, but then I was absent for a few years (you see, I have only myself to blame for all this), and memory is a fickle beast.

Some of our memories (mine f'rinstance) is fickler than others!

[Elgarian Redux]

Some of our memories (mine f'rinstance) is fickler than others!

Some days I can remember dinosaurs at the bottom of the garden.

[Karl Henning]

Some days I can remember dinosaurs at the bottom of the garden.

Don't let the trilobites bite!

[Mapman]

I tried "Antar" today because of the recent activity on this thread. It's beautiful, but it seemed lacking in drama. (For example, I didn't hear Antar rescuing the gazelle in the first movement.) Maybe I'll like it better in a few years!

[Elgarian Redux]

Don't let the trilobites bite!

Too late. In my first year as an undergraduate (1965-6), I chose to do Geology as a subsidiary course. While on a field trip in Derbyshire I picked up a chunk of shale, hit it with my hammer, and out popped the trilobite fossil of my dreams. The Official Geologist Supervisor observed that there was a lot of stone obscuring the details, and offered to clean it up for me. Ooh yes please, I said. That was the last I ever saw of it. So I was bitten - not by a trilobite, it's true - but by a trilobite hunter.

Off topic? No. I would have been whistling Scheherazade as I chipped away at the rocks.

[Roasted Swan]

I tried "Antar" today because of the recent activity on this thread. It's beautiful, but it seemed lacking in drama. (For example, I didn't hear Antar rescuing the gazelle in the first movement.) Maybe I'll like it better in a few years!

My memory (hazy, distant, probably flawed) of this particular performance is that it was surprisingly low key and disappointing.  I love the old 'proper' Svetlanov/Melodiya recordings of just about any/all Russian repertoire but these early digital remakes that appeared on RCA were rather perfunctory I recall (dimly - haven't heard them in literal decades!)

[Elgarian Redux]

I tried "Antar" today because of the recent activity on this thread. It's beautiful, but it seemed lacking in drama. (For example, I didn't hear Antar rescuing the gazelle in the first movement.) Maybe I'll like it better in a few years!

Try this:

Start at about 3.50, with the entrance of the gazelle. At 4.28 some sort of threat is indicated and the bird swoops. At 4.55-ish Antar attacks the bird, and by 5.20 the bird has been driven off. It doesn't last long, nor is it much of a big deal - after all, Antar is a tough guy.

That's how I read it - others may read it differently. I don't know how literally we can expect to match the music with the events of the tale.

[vandermolen]

The first of my recent Antar purchases has arrived, and I've just finished listening to it. And I realise that in a way, I ought to disqualify myself from commenting on all these recordings, because I haven't yet heard a performance of Antar that didn't wring my heart and leave me in a state of wonder. So I fear that I might end up just gushing about one recording after another. We'll see. If that happens, I promise I'll stop.

It might be as well to note that my 'goto' performance, at present is this one:

I don't propose to compare everything with this, not by any means, but it may be helpful to know that this is the recording that first blew me away a couple of weeks ago.

So, then, to this Supraphon recording, conducted by Jiri Belohlavek with the BRNO State Philharmonic Orchestra. It has the distinction of being recommended by distinguished GMG friend and colleague, vandermolen.

This is not like Svetlanov. To find overarching words to describe it, I'd go for 'lyrical', 'smooth', 'expressive but restrained'. At times it felt a little bit 'Hollywood', but in the nicest, smoothest possible way - I say this not as a derogatory comment but a tentatively descriptive one. In the two middle movements the guy on the big drum earns his pay very effectively and sensitively without bashing the heck out of my ears.

The gazelle/princess Gul Nazar music is deliciously sensual whenever it occurs, rippling through the score like a silk scarf in a gentle breeze. Anyone would fall in love with her on the basis of listening to this.

If this recording had been my first experience of Antar, would I have been blown away? Oh yes. Would this replace my Svetlanov CD? No. But neither would the Svetlanov be able to replace this. I want both readings of this music. I have both. I am, in that respect, a happy fellow.

I await the postman for the next one.

Here's my favourite:

[Karl Henning]

He hasn't been anyone's recommendation for Antar, and as yet his seems to be the sole Antar I've heard as yet, so that I'm not sure I feel qualified to offer it as a rec. but I do enjoy Dmitri Kitaenko's recording with the Bergen Phil.

[Karl Henning]

Here's my favourite:

Great cover art!

[vandermolen]

I, too, have some pieces of which I feel I've never heard a bad performance/recording.

I've also never heard a 'bad' performance of 'Antar'.

[Karl Henning]

He hasn't been anyone's recommendation for Antar, and as yet his seems to be the sole Antar I've heard as yet, so that I'm not sure I feel qualified to offer it as a rec. but I do enjoy Dmitri Kitaenko's recording with the Bergen Phil.

I'm sheepishly conscious of appearing to echo @Elgarian Redux (and why not, if it come to that?) but I seem to bed having an "Antar, where have you been, all my life?" Moment, myself.

[Kalevala]

I don't recall hearing Antar before?  Will have to look into it.

K

[Elgarian Redux]

Here's my favourite: [Gould & Chicago SO]

Unfortunately there seems to be no way of getting it on CD. I've made one, using an internet source, but it's not hifi of course, and so for comparison purposes the playing field isn't level. Like Karl, I think the cover art is great.

[Elgarian Redux]

I'm sheepishly conscious of appearing to echo @Elgarian Redux (and why not, if it come to that?) but I seem to bed having an "Antar, where have you been, all my life?" Moment, myself.

You must surely have realised after all these years that I rarely know what I'm talking about?

But I do sympathise with the 'where have you been' response, and at present I have fights with the postman if he doesn't bring me a new Antar CD every day.