Jean Martinon - Borodin: Symphony No. 2 / Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol (1959) [2017 DSD]
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BAND/ARTIST: Jean Martinon
- Title: Borodin: Symphony No. 2 / Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol
- Year Of Release: 1959 [2017]
- Label: RCA Victor Living Stereo / Analogue Productions
- Genre: Classical
- Quality: DSD64 (*.dff) tracks | 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz
- Total Time: 00:44:43
- Total Size: 1,2 GB (+3%rec.)
- WebSite: Album Preview
Borodin’s Symphony 2 in B Minor took about 6 years to complete. It was the work of a man who regarded music as his avocation rather than his profession, who wedged time for composition into a life crowded with other important obligations. Alexander Borodin was a leading surgeon & chemist in 19th- century Russia, the highly regarded author of scientific papers bearing such unmusical titles as Researches Upon the Fluoride of Benzol & The Solidification of Aldehydes. Musically, Borodin goes down in history as a member of the renowned Russian “Five,” the group which also included Balakireff, Cui, Moussorgsky & Rimsky-Korsakoff. Borodin worked intermittently on his 2nd Symphony from 1871 to 1876. A man who kept taking detours, he had put aside his opera Prince Igor-which he never finished-to do the symphony. He wrote the 1st movement in 1871, then shelved the composition to concentrate on an operatic ballad entitled Mlada. Gedeunov, the director of the Russian Opera, was behind this new project, which did not materialise because of financial difficulties. So Borodin went back to work on the symphony.
It was 1st performed in February of 1877 at the Rittersaal, St. Petersburg, with Napravnik conducting. Borodin had put what he thought were the finishing touches to the work while he was ill in bed. Reviewing the debut performance in the publication Novoe Vremya, the Russian critic lvanov had this to say: “Hearing the music, you are reminded of the ancient Russian knights in all their awkwardness & also in all their greatness. There is heaviness even in the lyric & tender passages. The massive forms are at times tiresome; they crush the hearer.” Borodin subsequently revised the symphony. New York City 1st heard it in 1887 at a concert of the Philharmonic Society under the direction of Anton Seidl.
The Borodin Symphony 2 is a strongly evocative composition. Stassov, the literary man who was eloquent in his defence of the symphony, wrote: “Borodin himself often told me that in the slow movement he wished to recall the songs of the Slav bayans [troubadours]; in the 1st movement, the gatherings of ancient Russian princes; & in the finale, the banquets of the heroes to the sound of the guzla [a single-stringed, violin-like instrument] & the bamboo flute in the midst of the rejoicing crowd… Borodin was haunted… by a picture of feudal Russia, & tried to paint it in music.” Borodin died in the city of his birth, St. Petersburg, in February of 1887. The following summer Rimsky-Korsakoff was busy working on the orchestration of his friend Borodin’s unfinished opera, Prince Igor. “In the middle of the summer, this work was interrupted,” Rimsky-Korsakoff states. His own genius was shoving Borodin’s aside. “I composed the Spanish Capriccio from the sketches of my projected virtuoso violin fantasy of Spanish themes.”
A man who knew his own mind, & didn’t hesitate to speak it, Rimsky-Korsakoff had some emphatic & specific remarks to make about the Capriccio Espagnole: “The opinion formed by both critics & the public that the Capriccio is a magnificently orchestrated piece is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant composition for the orchestra. The changes of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs & figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments, solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc., constitute here the very essence of the composition & not its garb or orchestration.” The composer conducted the première of the work in St. Petersburg on October 31, 1887. The flamboyant Capriccio received an enthusiastic reception, & has been tremendously popular ever since. It has the dashing zest which might be expected of an ex-sailor like Rimsky-Korsakoff.
Despite an early manifestation of musical talent, family pressure & economic reasons combined to force Rimsky-Korsakoff to join the Russian Navy. He had been studying music with Balakireff, but his family frowned on this activity. His mother tried to convince him that his interest in music was just a passing fancy. The result was that by the time he was 21, Rimsky-Korsakoff was a naval officer with 2.5 years of sea duty to his credit. It seemed quite possible that he would enter the Naval Academy for advanced instruction. But in September of 1865 he was transferred to St. Petersburg. Here he renewed his friendship with Balakireff, & was soon drawn into a circle of talented musicians. When his 1st symphony was performed at 1 of Balakireff’s Free School concerts, the applauding audience was surprised when a young man in naval uniform rose to acknowledge the applause.
Rimsky-Korsakoff’s gift for exotic music is effectively shown in the March from Tsar Saltan, an opera composed in 1899-1900. In operatic form, it made its 1st appearance in Moscow in December of 1900. The suite, adapted for orchestra in 3 movements by the composer, had the odd distinction of being premièred in St. Petersburg shortly before the opera from which it was taken was heard in Moscow. The story of the opera is from a fairy tale by Pushkin, a writer much admired by Rimsky-Korsakoff. V.I. Bielsky wrote the opera libretto, & the composer, considering it “splendid,” matched its quality musically.
~ Notes by Leonard Raphael © by Radio Corporation of America, 1959
Tracks:
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Symphony No.2 in B minor
1-1. Allegro 06:41
2-2. Scherzo: Prestissimo – Allegretto 04:37
3-3. Andante 07:39
4-4. Finale: Allegro 05:53
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Capriccio Espagnol, Op.34
5-1. Alborada 01:11
6-2. Variazioni 04:29
7-3. Alborada 01:11
8-4. Scena e canto gitano 02:29
9-5. Fandango asturiano 05:37
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
10-March 04:57
Personnel:
Hugh Maguire, violin solo 5-9
London Symphony Orchestra
Jean Marinon, conductor
It was 1st performed in February of 1877 at the Rittersaal, St. Petersburg, with Napravnik conducting. Borodin had put what he thought were the finishing touches to the work while he was ill in bed. Reviewing the debut performance in the publication Novoe Vremya, the Russian critic lvanov had this to say: “Hearing the music, you are reminded of the ancient Russian knights in all their awkwardness & also in all their greatness. There is heaviness even in the lyric & tender passages. The massive forms are at times tiresome; they crush the hearer.” Borodin subsequently revised the symphony. New York City 1st heard it in 1887 at a concert of the Philharmonic Society under the direction of Anton Seidl.
The Borodin Symphony 2 is a strongly evocative composition. Stassov, the literary man who was eloquent in his defence of the symphony, wrote: “Borodin himself often told me that in the slow movement he wished to recall the songs of the Slav bayans [troubadours]; in the 1st movement, the gatherings of ancient Russian princes; & in the finale, the banquets of the heroes to the sound of the guzla [a single-stringed, violin-like instrument] & the bamboo flute in the midst of the rejoicing crowd… Borodin was haunted… by a picture of feudal Russia, & tried to paint it in music.” Borodin died in the city of his birth, St. Petersburg, in February of 1887. The following summer Rimsky-Korsakoff was busy working on the orchestration of his friend Borodin’s unfinished opera, Prince Igor. “In the middle of the summer, this work was interrupted,” Rimsky-Korsakoff states. His own genius was shoving Borodin’s aside. “I composed the Spanish Capriccio from the sketches of my projected virtuoso violin fantasy of Spanish themes.”
A man who knew his own mind, & didn’t hesitate to speak it, Rimsky-Korsakoff had some emphatic & specific remarks to make about the Capriccio Espagnole: “The opinion formed by both critics & the public that the Capriccio is a magnificently orchestrated piece is wrong. The Capriccio is a brilliant composition for the orchestra. The changes of timbres, the felicitous choice of melodic designs & figuration patterns, exactly suiting each kind of instrument, brief virtuoso cadenzas for instruments, solo, the rhythm of the percussion instruments, etc., constitute here the very essence of the composition & not its garb or orchestration.” The composer conducted the première of the work in St. Petersburg on October 31, 1887. The flamboyant Capriccio received an enthusiastic reception, & has been tremendously popular ever since. It has the dashing zest which might be expected of an ex-sailor like Rimsky-Korsakoff.
Despite an early manifestation of musical talent, family pressure & economic reasons combined to force Rimsky-Korsakoff to join the Russian Navy. He had been studying music with Balakireff, but his family frowned on this activity. His mother tried to convince him that his interest in music was just a passing fancy. The result was that by the time he was 21, Rimsky-Korsakoff was a naval officer with 2.5 years of sea duty to his credit. It seemed quite possible that he would enter the Naval Academy for advanced instruction. But in September of 1865 he was transferred to St. Petersburg. Here he renewed his friendship with Balakireff, & was soon drawn into a circle of talented musicians. When his 1st symphony was performed at 1 of Balakireff’s Free School concerts, the applauding audience was surprised when a young man in naval uniform rose to acknowledge the applause.
Rimsky-Korsakoff’s gift for exotic music is effectively shown in the March from Tsar Saltan, an opera composed in 1899-1900. In operatic form, it made its 1st appearance in Moscow in December of 1900. The suite, adapted for orchestra in 3 movements by the composer, had the odd distinction of being premièred in St. Petersburg shortly before the opera from which it was taken was heard in Moscow. The story of the opera is from a fairy tale by Pushkin, a writer much admired by Rimsky-Korsakoff. V.I. Bielsky wrote the opera libretto, & the composer, considering it “splendid,” matched its quality musically.
~ Notes by Leonard Raphael © by Radio Corporation of America, 1959
Tracks:
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Symphony No.2 in B minor
1-1. Allegro 06:41
2-2. Scherzo: Prestissimo – Allegretto 04:37
3-3. Andante 07:39
4-4. Finale: Allegro 05:53
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
Capriccio Espagnol, Op.34
5-1. Alborada 01:11
6-2. Variazioni 04:29
7-3. Alborada 01:11
8-4. Scena e canto gitano 02:29
9-5. Fandango asturiano 05:37
The Tale of Tsar Saltan
10-March 04:57
Personnel:
Hugh Maguire, violin solo 5-9
London Symphony Orchestra
Jean Marinon, conductor
Year 2017 | Classical | Oldies | HD & Vinyl
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