Achim Reichel Nachtexpress (wea 9031 75874 2) (ger 1994, 1983)

Utopia - Oblivion (1983). Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a newly remastered edition of the classic 1983 album 'Oblivion' by Utopia. The album saw Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Roger Powell & Willie Wilcox strike out on their own, funding the recording themselves and in the process producing an album of startling originality. Featuring such classic tracks as 'Itch In My Brain', 'Cry Baby' ,'Lovewith a Thinker' and 'Winston Smith Takes It On The Jaw', 'Oblivion' was one of Utopia's finest later albums…

Both these couplings are extremely fine, but taken together they add up to even more than the sum of their parts. The point of coupling Shostakovich’s first and last string quartets is obvious, and the contrast between what the composer himself called his “Springtime Quartet” and the unprecedented sequence of six slow movements written months before his death could not be more poignant.

Balakirev worked on the second of his twosymphonies between 1900 and 1908 and it was first performed at a Free Schoolconcert in April 1909 under the direction of Liapunov. Work on his firstsymphony had been resumed thirty years after the first sketches, with no traceof a change of style. Similarly the second symphony, which makes use of theScherzo planned in the 1860s for the earlier work, is in a style that hadpassed. This, after all, was the age of Stravinsky's Firebird. It is,nevertheless, a compelling enough work, testimony to Balakirev's craftsmanshipand to the Russian source of his his inspiration.