Search - Evgeny Svetlanov, USSR Symphony Orchestra :: Suites 3 & 4

A little chamber work gem!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 06/22/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""I love everything in Mozart, for we love everything in the man to whom we are truly devoted. Above all, Don Giovanni, for through that work I have learned to know what music is." Piotr Illich Tchaikovsky, October 2 1886.



Judging from the above one can readily understand why, in the following year, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Don Giovanni, Tchaikovsky decided to commemorate the event with a special act of musical homage.

That Fourth Suite "Mozartiana", was composed in the summer of 1887, in the Caucasus, at the home of his brother Anatol. Chronologically it belongs between Manfred and the Fifth Symphony.



This is one of my favorite musical works of Tchaikovsky. It breaths a special charm, sweetness and warmth. Curiously Johannes Brahms who was not precisely a friend of him coincided with Piotr in that common esteem for Amadeus.



You may consider this is an intimate piece and far from being a work of this turbulent period. It seemed he decided stopping and composed the work as a real parenthesis. There are sonorities that connect us with his Serenade for strings Op. 22.



Since my three beloved versions are the celebrate performance of Anshel Brusilow with the Chamber Symphony, Vaclav Talich's Praga Symphonic and Mitropoulus' New York Philharmonic, I must recognize this worthy reading of this piece. You need a first class orchestra to win with this work, specially violins and clarinets.





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