Robust and rollicking, for a nice change
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 03/01/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Over the years Prokofiev's score for Romeo and Juliet has become more refined thanks to superstar conductors and virtuoso orchestras. As a result, the music has lost most of its earthiness and robust vitality, two words we automatically associate with Rostropovich. You won't mistake the National Sym. for the Berlin Phil., but Rostropovich charges them with rough vitality. From "Folk Dance," the first number of the first suite, I felt how different this recording was compared to more refined ones. Rostropovich's podium technique gets a bit wobbly here and there, but the best things here are quite invigorating. As a ote, it's become rare for anyone to record the suites that the composer made from the complete ballet, which throws the sequence completely out of order."