Ukraine Krug

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.