Search - Sofia Gubaidulina, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra :: Gubaidulina: And: The Feast is in Full Progress; Ten Preludes

Icons in Sound

08/04/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gubaidulina's way of putting together a large-scale work is far more like iconography than traditional symphonic technique - a burning into the brain of successive layers of imagery that are incandescent on their own and become even more powerful when layered on top of one another. The opening of 'Und...' is a very good example of this. At the beginning, a quiet, insistent rhythmic figure is repeated again and again, and is taken up gradually by all of the human, divine and demonic voices of the large orchestra. As the music progresses, these voices become increasingly fiery and unstable, culminating in wild shrieks and howls in the brass. The solo cello part, charismatically projected by David Geringas takes the role of a lead singer among a vast, fanatical congregation. The sound is terrific, highlighting all of the burning colours of this extraordinary score with great clarity."

A disappointing concerto in disappointing recording

Christopher Culver | 08/18/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Out of all CDs entirely dedicated to the music of Sofia Gubaidulina, this old Collegno release is one of the most obscure. And to boot, the concerto here is one of Gubaidulina's least performed large works. Unfortunately, I found this to be a mainly disappointing disc.



"And: The Festivities at Their Height" for cello and orchestra (1993) has a dual inspiration. On one hand, it pays hommage to a poem by Gennady Aigi, the Chuvash poet who Gubaidulina set in "Jetzt immer Schnee" of the same year. One the other hand, its title makes reference to Pushkin's tale "A Feast During a Plague", which Gubaidulina obviously finds quite moving since she later gave that exact title to a 2006 orchestral work.



From the very start of the cello concerto, one notices this is a live recording, and a poor one at that. The Collegno label is notorious for selling murky recordings at full price, and here one has to strain hard to follow the work. Then, there's the problem of the music itself. There are some interesting moments, such as a duel between harpsichord and cello, and a long lyrical passage for cello solo, and David Geringas shows excellent ability, but all in all there's little clear form or gripping drama. As an engaging exploration of the cello's abilities and a better musical drama, I feel Gubaidulina succeeded much better with "The Canticle of the Sun" for cello and choir, written for Rostropovich and superbly recorded on an EMI disc.



The disc is rounded out, but not much, by the "12 Preludes" for solo cello. Originally these were educational pieces written in the 1970s--the set was first titled "12 Etudes"--but a number of prominent cellists have performed and recorded the set as a concert work in its own right. Well, the pieces are rather charming, though out of the plethora of CDs featuring the Preludes this performance by Vladimir Tonkha, though he's the dedicatee, doesn't especially stand out.





I love the music of Sofia Gubaidulina, and I listen to her symphony 'Stimmen... Verstummen...' and her masterpiece Johannes Passion several times a week. This disc, however, I can't recommend to any but Gubaidulina collectors."