Theodore Grippo

Fanya Lin, Polish Wieniawski Philharmonic Orchestra & Theodore Kuchar - Rhapsodic (2023)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 185 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 99 Mb | 00:43:15
Classical | Label: Navona Records

Pianist Fanya Lin’s RHAPSODIC is a masterful exploration of two of the most iconic pieces in piano repertoire. With her deft touch and nuanced interpretation, Lin lends an entirely new dimension to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Variations.

For those listeners for whom the savage sonorities and fierce architecture of Mahler's Sixth don't do it anymore, there's Prokofiev's Third, a vicious and malevolent symphony of ferocious savagery and appalling brutality. But that doesn't mean, however, that the orchestra and conductor can take it easy. It means that they have to keep tight control and firm command or the music will degenerate into mere pandemonium. But as Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine demonstrate, it is possible to be overwhelmingly violent and still make great music. The power and precision of the Ukraine's playing makes every barbed hook and sharpened point audible and the clarity and lucidity of Kuchar's conducting drives every aural agony deep into the listener's ears.

Aside from having been published consecutively, there isn't much to link Prokofiev's Waltz Suite, Op. 110, with his Symphony No. 6, Op. 111. The waltzes are delightful, charming, elegiac, a little bit creepy, but always ingratiating. The Symphony No. 6 is powerful, lyrical, tragic, very scary, and always monumental. The only thing they really have in common is Prokofiev's skill as an orchestrator and his powerful idenity as a composer. In this 1994 recording by Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, both works are fully characterized and completely compelling. The waltzes are fey and affectionate with dancing rhythms and enchanting melodies. The symphony is massive and frightening with achingly beautiful themes and deeply tragic structures.

With one reservation, this 1995 recording by Theodore Kuchar conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine of the early orchestral music of Prokofiev is among the best ever made. Their performances of the late Romantic Dreams, Op. 6, and almost impressionist Autumn Sketch, Op. 8, are lush, warm, and radiantly colorful, but Kuchar keeps control of the balances and tempos so that they don't get soft and sentimental.

Beyond all argument, Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5, Op. 10, is his biggest, his grandest, and his greatest symphony, a massive and monumental work that celebrates the triumph of all that is decent and virtuous over all that is depraved and immoral. But while Prokofiev's symphonic suite The Year 1941, Op. 90, is perhaps not his loudest and dumbest symphonic work, it is as bathetic, as bombastic, and as banal as the Symphony No. 5 is good, decent, and virtuous. The great thing about this disc is that both works are on it and both works get the best possible performances from Theodore Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

Bedrich Smetana was the first major nationalist composer of Bohemia. Probably best known for his opera The bartered bride and of course The Moldau (from ‘My homeland’) most of his orchestral music is rather neglected by the average symphony orchestra.

The wonderful French pianist Cédric Tiberghien has made several admired recital and chamber recordings. Now he joins the impressive roster of pianists who have contributed to Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series with Volume 60: Théodore Dubois. Three works by this French composer are included here, and they present a captivating panorama of the evolution of Dubois’ style over some forty years: the Concerto-capriccioso of 1876 seems like a preliminary study in the style of such composers as Weber and Mendelssohn, whereas the highly Romantic Concerto in F minor (1897) is reminiscent of Saint-Saëns. The completely unknown Suite for piano and strings (1917), for its part, resembles a neoclassical pastiche.