Concertgebouw Orkest Rimski Korsakov Scheherazade Krill

The members of the Zurich Ensemble are Fabio di Càsola (clarinet), Kamilla Schatz (violin), Pi-Chin Chien (cello), and Benjamin Engeli (piano). The ensemble’s web site doesn’t indicate when it was founded or even whether this is its first CD. (This is, however, the only CD listed on ArkivMusic’s site, so draw your own conclusions.) Be that as it may, this is a thoroughly delightful CD, headlined by a clever arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s enduring warhorse, and complemented by the less familiar works by Khachaturian and Sergei Bortkiewicz.

The recordings on Sweden's BIS label by Israeli-born flutist Sharon Bezaly have exposed a great deal of neglected and often highly virtuosic repertory, much of its brought within reach by Bezaly's unusual circular breathing technique. She's a remarkable flutist, but it's her repertory selection that really sets her apart from the crowd. She actually throws in some chestnuts, like Cécile Chaminade's Concertino for flute and orchestra, Op. 107, this time around, but the highlight is a really nifty and unknown little work: the Flute Concert in D major, Op. 283, of Carl Reinecke, composed in 1908. Its three movements reduce Wagnerian language to a compact concerto in all kinds of ingenious ways. Sample the first movement, where the flute provides a charming pastoral element against a varying backdrop. The other works are each characteristic of their composer, even including the very early Largo and Allegro for flute and strings of Tchaikovsky.

Might you have a reliable original edition of Modest Mussorgsky’s «Pictures at an Exhibition» for piano, that I could borrow? The request was made by Maurice Ravel in February 1922 to his friend «Calvo», full name Michel Dimitri Calvoressi, a Marseille-born British music critic and author with Greek roots. In the letter Ravel went so far as to underline the words «édition originale de Moussorgsky». So at least as far back as Ravel we have had this problem, one that Jun Märkl is even today all too aware of: the quest for the original Mussorgsky has always been difficult. Back then, Calvo was clearly unable to help the composer. Ravel, who had been delighted to receive a commission from the conductor Serge Koussevitzky for an instrumental arrangement of the piano cycle, had to content himself with the edition published in 1886, after Mussorgsky’s death, under the aegis of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – a version we now know to contain a number of corrections, typos and printing errors. The reasons for this can be found in the personal fate of the composer and in the well-meaning and in some cases essential retrospective editing of his oeuvre.

The world-renowned New York Philharmonic (officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York) is America's oldest symphony orchestra, a prime example of high standards of performance to musicians and audiences everywhere. Beginning in the 1820s, there were several attempts to found an orchestra in the city, the more successful of which were the Philharmonic Symphony Society (established in 1842) and the New York Symphony (established in 1878). The Philharmonic had a reputation for conservatism and high standards, hiring primarily European conductors, such as Gustav Mahler. The Symphony seemed more ambitious and interested in new music. It received patronage from Andrew Carnegie, enabling the building of Carnegie Hall (1891), with an inaugural concert led by Walter Damrosch and Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky.

RCO - Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vol 3, 1960-1970 (2005) {14CD Box Set RCO 05001, Limited Edition}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.67 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.40 Gb
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© 1960-70, 2005 Radio Netherlands Music / RCO LIve | RCO 05001
Classical / Orchestral

Despite rumors some months ago that the RCOA series might be discontinued (fortunately unfounded), here we have Volume III, a 14-CD set that contains much of interest, but surely—for this collector—doesn't live up to its potential. For me, ideally that would concist of some of the outstanding performances of great symphonic music played by this magnificent orchestra, recorded in the extraordinary acoustics of the Concertgebouw with the usual Radio Nederland sonic expertise. During the decade represented in this set (1960-1970) the Concertgebouw Orchestra's programming often emphasized contemporary music and that surely is reflected in this album. We have well over five hours of music by Martin, Varèse, Berg, Webern, Henze, Lutoslawski, Nono and Dallapiccola as well as Dutch composers Ketting, Escher, and Vermeulen, and Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz's Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion, an 18-minute three-movement work of imagination and vivid scoring.