From the Back Room: Music by Balakirev

Mili Balakirev (1837-1910) is known more for his influence on other composers, such as Tchaikovsky, than for his own music.

Young Balakirev

That said, Balakirev's Islamey, Tamara and Russia are heard now and then. And his Overture on Themes of Three Russian Songs, which leads off today's LP, has even appeared on this blog before - in the Kansas City Philharmonic recording led by Hans Schwieger. It's an appealing work. When I posted the Kansas City disc, I noted that Schwieger had chosen "scores that were unusual but still appealing."

The performances on today's LP are old-school Russian, and of uncertain vintage. They have a rough and ready feel that is something of a shock to Western sensibilities. But they also are authentic for their period.

Nikolai Anosov

The Overture on Themes of Three Russian Songs is conducted by Nikolai Anosov (1900-62) with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, which I believe is now the Moscow State Symphony. Anosov was the orchestra's music director from 1945-50.

Also on this LP is Balakirev's complete incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's King Lear, a rarity. The overture is occasionally heard, but the set of incidental music as it appears here not so.

Leo Ginsburg

The King Lear music is conducted by Leo Ginzburg (1901-79), who leads the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra, now known as the Tchaikovsky Symphony.

Both works were written in 1858, early in Balakirev's career, when he was barely in his 20s. The Overture on Russian Themes is an overt expression of the Russian musical nationalism that the composer promoted.

But what of the Shakespeare music? Leon Botstein has written: "Since Shakespeare had been appropriated by the French and German in translation, [Russian] nationalist intellectuals used Shakespeare to demonstrate that Slavic languages ... could transmit the English original of the world’s greatest playwright just as well as German or French ... Not surprisingly, many nineteenth-century Russian and Czech composers were eager to write symphonic music designed to accompany or evoke popular nationalist productions of Shakespeare’s plays."

The Overture on Russian Themes is vividly played, as was the Russian manner at the time. If you listen into the third minute of the overture, you will hear a familiar theme later used by Tchaikovsky in his Symphony No. 4. The recording is reasonably good mono.

The recording of the King Lear incidental music is more opaque. It features, if that is the right word, the empty-tub tympani and squalling brass that once were common in Russian recordings. Here too the performances are vivid.

This particular pressing dates from 1962, a few years before the establishment of the Melodiya company. The pressings are on the MK label, "MK" being an abbreviation for "Mezhdurodnaya Kniga," or "International Books," an export arm. In this case, MK sent the pressings to the US company Artia, which packaged them and bundled them off to its notoriously spotty distribution network.

Sorry, but I've been unable to find the dates of the recordings; the year listed in the file metadata represents the publication date of this record.

This is one of my "From the Back Room" posts that respond to reader requests.

LINK

Russian Music from Kansas City

The Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra made but two LPs in its 50-year history, both under Hans Schwieger (1906-2000), music director from 1948-70. These worthy recordings of Russian music, the subject of today's post, both come from early 1959.

The recordings were made for Urania, which had assembled an extensive catalogue of LPs sourced from Europe and was looking for projects in the US. Schwieger chose the repertoire, selecting scores that were unusual but still appealing. He chose two works by Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Glazunov's fourth symphony, and Mili Balakirev's Overture on Three Russian Themes.

Hans Schwieger

Schwieger was born in Cologne in 1906, and did well in his nascent music career until the Nazis came to power. His wife was Jewish, which limited his prospects. Like many others, he ended up in the US, arriving in 1938. All was well until a few days after Pearl Harbor, when he was mistakenly arrested as an enemy agent. He was interred for more than a year. (More about the conductor's life can be found in this excellent series.)

Schwieger succeeded Karl Kruger and Efrem Kurtz as conductor of the Kansas City Philharmonic, which was dissolved in 1982, but soon was succeeded by the Kansas City Symphony.

Prokofiev - Symphonic Suite of Waltzes, Gypsy Fantasy

The major work on the first Urania LP is Prokofiev's Symphonic Suite of Waltzes, which the composer assembled from several of his other works and premiered in 1947. Schwieger and the Kansas City orchestra presented the first US performance in late 1958.

Sergei Prokofiev

The six movements and the sources of the dances are as follows:

• I. The Meeting, from the opera War and Peace
• II. Cinderella at the Castle, from the ballet Cinderella
• III. Mephisto Waltz, from the film Lermontov
• IV. The End of the Tale, from Cinderella
• V. New Year's Eve Ball, from War and Peace
• VI. Happy Ending, from Cinderella

Ad in High Fidelity

For me, the finest (and most familiar) movement is the sweeping final waltz from Cinderella. (The composer's suites from the ballet can be found here.)

The Gypsy Fantasy comes from the late ballet The Stone Flower, which was not premiered until after Prokofiev's 1953 death.

In general, the record received good reviews. HiFi Review: "[T]he repertoire is interestingly conducted by Hans Schwieger, the Kansas City Philharmonic's regular music director ... Schwieger is revealed on this Urania disc as a musician of excellent taste and outstanding ability. His beat is firm; he maintains a tightly disciplined control over the ensemble; and he conducts with imagination."

Alfred Frankenstein of High Fidelity, however, was not impressed by the second work, calling it a "very ordinary piece of hack work."

LINK to Prokofiev LP

Glazunov - Symphony No. 4; Balakirev - Suite on Three Russian Themes

The Balakirev and Glazunov compositions were recorded at the same sessions as the Prokofiev. A contemporary article in the Kansas City Times says they were scheduled for March 22 and 24, 1959 in the World War II Memorial Building.

The Prokofiev release was given a relatively elaborate presentation. It came in a box with notes, and the fancy labels bore Schwieger's signature. The second LP was a bare-bones affair - no box, no photos and black-and-white labels.

Alexander Glazunov

Glazunov's symphony had been recorded before - by Evgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic - but this appears to have been its first recording in the West.

Balakirev's Overture on Three Russian Themes (here called the Overture on Themes of Russian Folksongs), had been recorded twice before in the West - by Lovro von Matačić in London and by László Somogyi in Paris.

Glazunov's symphonies have never achieved popularity in the Western world, but they do have much to offer the sympathetic listener. Initially influenced by such earlier composers as Balakirev, by the time of the Symphony No. 4 (1893) Glazunov had adopted a less nationalist tone and did not make use of Russian themes, such as can be heard in the Balakirev work on the same disc.

Mili Balakirev

Balakirev was 30 years the elder of Glazunov, part of a generation that made extensive use of folk materials. The delightful Overture on Three Russian Themes, an early work (1857-58), is an excellent example. The folksong "In the fields stands a birch tree" would later be used to memorable effect in Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. "There was at the feast" reappears in Stravinsky's Petrushka.

This second Urania LP did not elicit the same positive reviews as the Prokofiev album. The only national review I found was in HiFi Review, where David Hall wrote, "The Balakirev Overture has already received a superb monophonic recording ... and it must be said that Schwieger's merely neat and precise performance is no match for it. The Glazunov performance by Schwieger and his Kansans is in similar vein."

Hans Schwieger in rehearsal

Although the two LPs were recorded during the same sessions, the sound of the Prokofiev was much better received.

Hall's opinion of the second record: "The recorded sound in stereo has fine spread, but not much depth, warmth or the kind of presence that makes for the best kind of symphony orchestra sound."

Actually the two records do sound different. The string sound in the Prokofiev was very wiry, possibly because the violins were too closely miked, which I've tamed. The second LP does not have such a glare, but it also does not, as Hall wrote, offer much depth or warmth.

1961 ad

But even so, these are worthy representations of a very good orchestra under a skillful conductor. It's too bad more were not forthcoming.

I transferred these records from my collection as the result of a request. The download includes an article on Schwieger from the Kansas City Times, as well as ads, the reviews, scans, etc.

LINK to Glazunov-Balakirev LP