Andrei Fursov

The Yekaterinburg Philharmonic Choir (artistic director and conductor Andrei Petrenko) presents Great Music of Small Forms, an album of works by Russian composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. These include works by Varlamov and Glinka as representatives of the St. Petersburg school, by Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Balakirev and Cui (The Mighty Handful), and by Arensky, Anton Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky. Whilst these composers were primarily known for their large-scale compositions, here they reveal themselves as consummate masters of the choral miniature, finding their inspiration in the masterpieces of Russian poetry, in folk songs and in salon romances. Listeners will here discover not only world-famous works by these composers but also original choral arrangements of their music that were made especially for this recording.

Andrei Gavrilov’s 1987 EMI cycle of the Bach Keyboard Concertos (played on the concert grand) generally finds this Russian firebrand on his best pianistic behavior. The engineering imparts an almost Mantovani-esque sheen to the strings of Neville Marriner’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, with the piano a little too forward in the mix. Loud piano passages have a metallic edge that contrasts with the rounded, eloquent sound Gavrilov makes in the slow movements, into which the pianist pours every ounce of heart and soul.

This is a very good performance of the Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini performed by Andrei Gavrilov, the Russian Pianist, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Muti. It is a very good interpretation of these works, capturing all the intensity and nuance, energy and romance, of these selections. There are passages of incredible speed where precision is essential and this is evident in this recording. Gavrilov has the ability to fully express the magnificence of some passages and the more brooding nuance and subtlety of other passages. The Philadelphia Orchestra sounds terrific in this recording.

This disc is made up of much praised earlier issues from 1977 and 1979. The recordings were remastered effectively in 1985 and 1992 (Prokofiev pieces). The concertos and Islamey were particularly praised when first issued and that praise holds good today and this disc contains some of the most satisfying performances of this repertoire currently available.