Michaił Jurowski - Anton Rubinstein: Moses (2018)
BAND/ARTIST: Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus, Warsaw Philharmonic Choir & Artos Children’s Choir, Michaił Jurowski
- Title: Anton Rubinstein: Moses
- Year Of Release: 2018
- Label: Warner Classics
- Genre: Classical
- Quality: FLAC (image + .cue, log, artwork)
- Total Time: 3:18:04
- Total Size: 1018 MB
- WebSite: Album Preview
"Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew. Pianists call me a composer, composers call me a pianist. The classicists think me a futurist, and the futurists call me a reactionary," wrote Anton Rubinstein. "My conclusion is that I am neither fish nor fowl -- a pitiful individual." He could have been talking about Moses, which here receives what may be its world premiere -- not only on recordings, but overall -- in a Polish production featuring the Sinfonia Iuventus, conducted by Michail Jurowski. The work is designated as a sacred opera rather than an oratorio. It consists mostly of dramatic solo numbers, rather than choral tableaux. Yet there is also something oratorio-like about it, as Rubinstein seems to admit when he labels the eight sections "Pictures" (in German, the language of the opera, "Bilder"). As the quote above suggests, there's a bit of everything in the opera, although those who know Rubinstein's piano works will find it hard to identify Moses as the work of the same composer. There are exotic passages that hark back to Balakirev depicting the biblical locale. There are big, percussion-heavy scenes that must have made a considerable impact on the few lucky enough to have heard them. There are spookily lyrical choruses from night spirits. But the model for the soloists' singing is Wagner, and there's no doubt that Rubinstein puts the idiom to good use. Jurowski works with a group of uniformly good, German soloists. The text, by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal (who also wrote the libretto to The Merry Wives of Windsor), follows Moses from his delivery from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter to the incident of the golden calf. The male leads, Ukrainian baritone Stanisław Kuflyuk as Moses and German tenor Torsten Kerl as Pharaoh, are especially strong, and you might cheat and sample the grand finale, with Kuflyuk intoning "Höre Israel, Jehova ist dein Gott" ("Hear, Israel, Jehovah is your God"), for a taste of the vocal power on display. The opera is well over three hours long, and it's especially recommended to those in tune with Wagnerian dimensions, but it is undeniably worthy of rediscovery. ~ James Manheim
Year 2018 | Classical | FLAC / APE | CD-Rip
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