Search - Prokofiev, Varese, Mosolov :: Prokofiev: Symphony No. 3/Varese: Arcana/Mosolov: Iron Foundry

Rarely-performed masterpieces

Bruce Hodges | New York, NY | 03/19/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There are three works on this outstanding release, arguably my favorite disc by Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The centerpiece for most people will be the Prokofiev Third Symphony - not nearly as well known as say, the Fifth, but it should be. On either side of this are two 20th-century blockbusters, Varese's percussion-filled spectacular, "Arcana," and the pitifully underplayed "Zavod," or Iron Foundry, by Mosolov. The Varese has been recorded a number of times over the years in some exciting versions. This one might not be essential if you have others, but one could hardly argue with the crisp, exciting performance here. The Mosolov is the real find: an imaginative evocation of the machine age, composed in the early 20th-century. Why this piece is not played more often, either as a curtain-raiser or as an encore, is beyond me. It has obvious musical appeal, not to mention a viscerally exciting volume level that will probably not endear you to your neighbors. (Just send them a note and a fruit basket.)Thrilling music on the entire disc, and all played with the power and precision that we have come to expect from Chailly and the incomparable Concertgebouw Orchestra."

The Program Makes This the Disc to Get

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 12/17/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This disc may be the best way to acquire Prokofiev's rarely heard Symphony No. 3 for your collection. While there may be other equally fine performances (Muti's superb version with the Philadelphia Orchestra on Philips comes immediately to mind), it is Chailly's clever programming that wins the day. First the Prokofiev



The Third Symphony is based on the largely unperformed opera "The Fiery Angel," the story of a 16th-century German girl who makes a Faust-like pact with the devil believing him to be her own "fiery angel." Musical motifs and indeed the whole atmosphere of the opera are transferred to the symphony. Hence the haunted and haunting ostinato figure in the strings that dominates the first movement and the weird scherzo with its diviso strings, all doing their own weird thing, and its banshee-like glissandi.



Maybe one reason this interesting work is not played more often is that the last movement adds nothing new but is merely more of the same spooky stuff, only noisier. The ability to achieve the great cumulative effect Prokofiev built in his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies is something that would come, ironically, from his enforced captivity to the Stalinist ideals of music for the common man. In the Third Symphony, Prokofiev is still a dedicated avantgardist--the public pretty much be darned. This creative period generated some fine music certainly but also some relative duds, such as the Second Symphony, which Prokofiev said even he himself didn't understand. Luckily, the Third Symphony is one of those fine works from the period, and it truly impresses in a great performance like Chailly's.



I really think that some of Edgard Varese's painfully modernist gestures sound dated today though you can still enjoy his wild orchestration, with its air raid sirens and invented instruments. Again, luckily, Arcana is one of Varese's most disciplined and successful works, and its good to hear it again and be reminded of the vitality of music-making in Paris in the 20s.



But the reason I bought this disc is Mosolov's tiny "The Iron Foundry." I first heard this piece on an scratchy, old Folkways record that collected a number of other avant-garde works from early-20th-century musical imitations of choo-choo trains to early examples of electronic music. I remember thinking that Mosolov's piece was one of the most terrifying pieces of music I had ever heard. Part of that had to do with the lousy Russian studio recording in especially monochrome mono sound. It was like listening to some great machine welling up from a basement shop, distant and dream-like--or rather nightmare-like--cruel, impersonal, enslaving.



Well, the work doesn't sound quite so terrifying on this beautifully recorded disc and played with such polish by the Concertgebouw. But "The Iron Foundry" still impresses with its canny recreation of machine sounds. Nowadays, we really don't get the Futurists' celebration of the machine because we've lived too long with the considerable downside of technology. But this little tone poem captures the brute and faceless power of the machine so well that it must be placed with Honegger's Pacific 231 as one of the triumphs of musical Futurism.(When I say so, I'm sure that I'm not just feeling nostalgic about that old Folkways Recording.)



Anyway, this is a wonderful cross-section of cutting-edge music from the 20s. Even that perfect Bruckner-Mahler orchestra, the Concertgebouw, plays with a lean and hungry, ultra-modern sound for Chailly instead of its characteristic plush suavity. Perfect in every way."