Reiner Lieutenant Kije CD

Forget the movie, Abbado’s Alexander Nevsky is more vivid than anything you’ll see on the screen. With gutsy singing from the London Symphony Chorus, a fine alto solo from Obratsova in “The Field of the Dead,” and terrifying sonorities in The Crusaders in Pskov, this really is the best version available. Abbado pulls out all the stops for the thrilling Battle on the Ice–in the movie the music for this sequence isn’t continuous, and in Temirkanov’s version of the complete file score they resort to battle noises to fill in the gaps just when the action reaches a peak of frenzy.

The new medium of film with sound was developing at around the time Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union, where in 1933 he composed the music for his first film, Lieutenant Kijé. Prokofiev’s remarkable perception of the medium’s requirements was enhanced by his collaboration with Sergey Eisenstein on Alexander Nevsky. The music was of epic proportions and the resultant cantata remains one of Prokofiev’s most brilliantly conceived and popular works. Leonard Slatkin’s classic VOX recordings of these works have been praised for their “powerful and compelling performances”. (ClassicsToday.com) The Elite Recordings for VOX by legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest sounding examples of orchestral recordings.

André Previn was always a great conductor of Russian repertoire and was especially known for his recordings of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. His 1973 recording of the Rachmaninov “Second Symphony” was important in establishing that work in the central repertoire and increasing the reputation of the composer himself. These are his mid-1970’s recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra recorded just one and four years after the Rachmaninov. He re-recorded all three works between Philips and Telarc in the late 1980’s with the Los Angeles Philharmonic but this recording is still his best.

When Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev visited Hollywood in the late 1930s, his friend and American champion, maestro Leopold Stokowski, was recording The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, to be used in Fantasia. Prokofiev was indelibly impressed by Walt Disney’s work. He saw how the Disney artists made their animation efforts adhere closely to pre-recorded music tracks; he experienced the click track, a device developed by Disney to ensure that sight and sound were closely coordinated. He then returned to Russia to work with Sergei Eisenstein on the epic film Alexander Nevsky.