Prokofiev Love

Leading dramatic soprano Susan Bullock offers a stunning recording for Avie’s innovative Crear Classics series with a recital of songs which are linked by the theme of love and aspects of love. Covering a vast period from 1880 to the 1950s, the 19th century is represented by Richard Strauss in his youthful and flirtatious three early Lieder, and Wagner in his mature romance with Mathilde Wesendonck which resulted in the songs bearing her name. Prokofiev’s wistful and woebegone love songs are a fascinating complement to Britten’s Pushkin settings. Selections by the quintessential song composers Roger Quilter and Ned Rorem round out the eclectic programme.

In his ballets the great Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev continues the long and famous tradition of Russian ballet music, which culminated in the immortal ballets of Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker, Swan Lake). Prokofiev’s genius for characterisation produced such classical “hits” as the Montagues & Capulets (often used in films, commercial and even sporting events!), and the Love Scene of Romeo and Juliet. Also the Cinderella-Waltz from the Cinderella Suite became an evergreen. The ballet Stone Flower is the last Soviet ballet Prokofiev wrote, and although it is little known, it contains music of great beauty and power on an equal level as the famous ballets.

This is a fine recording of two vastly under-appreciated works by young cello virtuoso Han-Na Chang. She has the extraordinary technique to play the excruciatingly difficult cadenza in the central movement of the Sinfonia Concertante and the sustained tone to play the long, lyrical melodies in the opening movement of the cello sonata. Antonio Pappano is a faithful accompanist whether he's directing the London Symphony Orchestra in the Sinfonia Concertante or playing the piano in the cello sonata.

Rather than play any single complete suite (of the three) that Prokofiev extracted from the complete ballet, Myung-Whun Chung makes his own selection of numbers, roughly following the plot line and including music representative of all the major characters. Although some other collections offer more music, this hour of Romeo and Juliet makes a satisfying presentation on its own. What makes the performance special is the spectacular playing of the Dutch orchestra. Frankly, it's never been done better. From the whiplash virtuosity of the violins to the bite of the trombones and the firm thud of the bass drum, this is the sound the composer must have dreamed of.

Captured in the Maly Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where much of Prokofiev's work was first heard, it's surprising to find so many aspects of the composer's style represented, from the Romanticism of the early Ballade through the spiky dissonances of Chout to the elegiac, unfinished Solo Sonata. Aided by characterful piano-playing by Tatyana Lazareva, Ivashkin's recital compares most favourably with his similar programme on Ode for which he was accompanied by a more reticent pianist; although the earlier disc includes the Concertino movement in the guise of Rostropovich's cello quintet arrangement, the absence of the Chout transmogrification makes the Chandos collection appear better value.

It was George Szell who made the Cleveland Orchestra into a highly responsive virtuoso body, and when he died in 1970 he was in due course succeeded by Lorin Maazel, himself a renowned orchestral trainer. Here is Maazel's first Cleveland recording, notable for a quite outstanding quality of orchestral playing. The strings in particular have a remarkable depth of tone, though they play with great delicacy when it is needed; but then the orchestra as a whole plays with extraordinary virtuosity, tonal weight and exactness of ensemble. If the woodwind have a somewhat piquant blend this suits the music, which throughout is admirably served by Maazel's highly rhythmic, dramatic conducting.

Prokofiev's score for Ivan the Terrible is some of the best film music ever written, fusing the composer's melodic gifts, his salty version of high-romantic orchestration, his love of grand church chants and thrilling marches. Despite the lack of Eisenstein's visuals, this powerful recording captures much of the film's epic grandeur, with Polyansky drawing some massive climaxes and breathtaking moments of intimacy from his forces.

This CD's title, Messe Noire, and its dark cover art may mislead some into thinking this album is filled with evil, forbidden things; but the only selection that suggests the diabolical is Alexander Scriabin's macabre Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," and it comes at the very end, after Igor Stravinsky's light, neo-Classical Serenade in A, Dmitry Shostakovich's sardonic Sonata No. 2, and Sergey Prokofiev's witty but brutal knuckle-buster, the Sonata No. 7, which all have their dark moments, certainly, but not the same sinister mood found in Scriabin. If pianist Aleksei Lubimov's aim in bringing these Russian masterworks together points to some other unifying idea – perhaps the significance of the piano in these composers' thinking – then some other title might have been more helpful. As it is, though, this album seems most unified in Lubimov's vigorous style of playing, brittle execution, and emphasis on the piano's percussive sonorities, evident in each performance. This spiky approach works best in Prokofiev's sonata, and fairly well in Shostakovich's and Stravinsky's pieces; but it seems too sterile in Scriabin's music, which needs more languor and sensuous writhing than clarity or crispness.