Concertgebouw Orkest Rimski Korsakov Scheherazade Krill

In 1903, Gustav Mahler conducted his own work with the Concertgebouw Orchestra for the first time. He was delighted with orchestra, choirs and audiences: "The musical culture of this country is amazing! How these people can listen!" The collaboration with the orchestra lasted until his death in 1911 and established the orchestra's Mahler tradition. Since then, all chief conductors of the RCO have maintained the special relationship with Mahler's music. On May 9, 2025, the RCO opens the Concertgebouw Mahler Festival with Mahler's 1st Symphony under the direction of designated chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä. For this occasion, the Box Mahler - The Chief Conductor Edition appears with all Mahler symphonies of his predecessors Eduard van Beinum, Willem Mengelberg, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, Mariss Jansons and Daniele Gatti, including The Song of the Earth and Deryck Cookes version of the 10th Symphony.

Bernard Haitink’s 1980 Manfred was the prize of his Concertgebouw/Tchaikovsky symphony cycle. Riccardo Chailly’s 1987 effort with the same orchestra, while very good, doesn’t quite live up to that standard. In both recordings you get the sense that Tchaikovsky composed Manfred expressly for the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The very sound of the ensemble in its own hall conjures the dark, fantasy world described in the music. To this add lively and colorful playing, rich sonority, and utterly impeccable musicianship and you’ve got a uniquely compelling aural experience. Where the performances part company is in Haitink’s embrace of Tchaikovsky’s passionate dramatic ethos, a quality that Chailly, by contrast, tends to shy away from. (Of course, for a truly passionate reading you have to hear Muti’s rendition on EMI.) In his favor Chailly does have Decca’s vivid, high-impact digital recording, which, though having less warmth than the analog Philips production, better conveys the massiveness of the Concertgebouw Hall’s acoustics.

It would be a sad day if Haydn and Mozart symphonies were only to be heard on period instruments, but with Sir Georg Solti and Sir Colin Davis jointly perpetuating the tradition of Haydn performances which Beecham created in the 78rpm era, with its combination of elegance and warm humanity, we need have no fears on this score.

This album of Russian violin concertos does what many modern orchestras do when programming concert repertoire. That is, feature one quite famous work (in this case, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto) to draw in more tentative patrons, then throw in a few less well-known but still deserving pieces (in this case, the Arensky and Rimsky-Korsakov). This approach is both effective and appropriate. The programming of these three composers is also historically intelligent; Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were contemporaries, and Arensky was one of Rimsky-Korsakov's many successful students.

Mozart composed some fifty symphonies, if we include works he adapted from opera overtures or serenades by adding movements or taking them away. The first dates from 1764-5, at the time of his childhood visit to London, and most are early works, quite short. Many are associated with his boyhood travels (his first trip to Italy in 1769-71, for instance) but his most prolific period as a symphonist was between 1771 and 1774 when, in Salzburg, he wrote no fewer than seventeen.

The Invisible City of Kitezh, completed in 1905, is a remarkable opera that fuses folklore, mysticism and realism. Its subject is the story of the advancing Mongol army’s entry to Great Kitezh and the city’s subsequent miraculous survival. Rejecting archaisms and the more religiously inclined suggestions of his librettist, Rimsky-Korsakov sought to create an opera that “is contemporary and even fairly advanced”. It is therefore through-composed, hinting at times at Wagnerian procedure, and flooded with the composer’s rich, apt and brilliant orchestral palette, fully supportive of the powerful vocal writing.

The Invisible City of Kitezh, completed in 1905, is a remarkable opera that fuses folklore, mysticism and realism. Its subject is the story of the advancing Mongol army’s entry to Great Kitezh and the city’s subsequent miraculous survival. Rejecting archaisms and the more religiously inclined suggestions of his librettist, Rimsky-Korsakov sought to create an opera that “is contemporary and even fairly advanced”. It is therefore through-composed, hinting at times at Wagnerian procedure, and flooded with the composer’s rich, apt and brilliant orchestral palette, fully supportive of the powerful vocal writing.

Bernard Haitink's classically clear and direct approach combines élan, elasticity and, where appropriate, tremendous rhythmic punch – his readings of Boléro and La valse are volatile, yet thrillingly disciplined to the last. He brings a natural compulsion to the languorous eroticism of Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2, while his idiomatic handling of the earliest (and slightest) of these works, the Menuet antique and familiar Pavane pour une infante défunte, is equally beguiling. Haitink's painstaking attention to fine orchestral detail adds refined distinction to his Valses nobles et sentimentales and crystalline delicacy to both Le tombeau de Couperin and the more elusive Ma mère l'oye. There are few more vibrantly evocative, or palpably exciting versions of the Rapsodie espagnole and Alborada del gracioso. Don't be in the least surprised, however, if the phenomenal sound quality prompts an incredulous second glance at the recording dates quoted in the booklet!

Rimsky-Korsakov is universally acknowledged as a great master of the orchestra. He even wrote a textbook on the subject consisting entirely of examples from his own music! He needed some sort of pictorial or literary stimulus to really get his imagination going, however. His "abstract pieces," like Symphonies No. 1 and 3, are comparative failures specifically because he believed that symphonic thought was incompatible with orchestral brilliance (he wasn't the only Romantic composer to succumb to that fallacy). So all of his best music is either obviously illustrative, or taken from one of his colorful "fairy tale" operas. This two-disc set gives you an excellent selection of works of both types at a great price.