Search - Rimsky-Korsakov, Monteux :: Scheherazade / Antar Symphony

Wonderful Story-telling Sets This Scheherazade Apart

Doug - Haydn Fan | California | 09/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"(If you do not own a stereo version of this piece and/or do not care for older recordings then you should be looking for another version of Scheherazade. Good choices would be Reiner, Beecham or Stowkowski.)

Once there was a time when conductors and orchestras focused on getting across the melodic heart of a piece. This was labeled Romantic, and has in recent years been knocked down several pegs by more "musical" interpretations. This performance of the famous Rimsky workhorse is a perfect example of one of these old-fashioned Romantic readings. Rimsky never quite rose to this level of symphonic grandeur again, and there is a great power and sweep here never again achieved in any of his other compositions. Monteux and his San Franciscans recreate this power magnificently. The sense of urgency is never far from the surface in their projection of the ebb and flow of the sea's pulse. The musical recreation of great currents and the surging rise and fall of cresting waves is spell-binding. My aunt heard this music years and years ago played by these same forces in concert and said that everyone in the city - meaning, of course, San Francisco in the forties - understood this performance to be Monteux's crowning achievement. The closing moments were, she said, utterly unforgettable.

So here, for a very small sum, is a chance to hear one of the great conductor's of the last century peforming the work most closely associated with him by his favorite audience. Monteux later made another recording with the better Vienna in excellent stereo sound, but this one seems far more marked by the conductor's gift for telling a story in music. This is only further aided by the magnificent performance of the solo violin by Naoum Blinder, Isaac Stern's teacher, who here sounds more captivating than soloists since as he recreates the voice of Scheherazade spinning her captivating tales. Short of a reissue of Koussevitzky's radio air checks this will remain far and away my own favorite Scheherazade. (And even then I wonder - though I'd love to be able to compare!) The other pieces are well done, but are not the reason to buy this CD.

The set has very fine notes, including a richly deserved full page photo of Scheherazade soloist Blinder. John Pfeiffer produced the reissue while Ward Marston handled the disc to digital tape transfer. So the sound is about as good as possible.

If you appreciate the different qualities to be found in older recordings you should like this."