Composer: Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Orchestra: Toulouse Capitol Orchestra
Conductor: Tugan Sokhiev
Format: FLAC (image+cue)
Label: Naïve
Catalogue: V5068
Release: 2006
Size: 354 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
01. Promenade
02. I. The Gnome
03. Promenade
04. II. The Old Castle
05. Promenade
06. III. Tuileries
07. IV. Bydlo
08. Promenade
09. V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
10. VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
11. VII. The Market Place at Limoges
12. VIII. Catacombae: Sepulchrum romanum
13. Cum mortuis in lingua mortua
14. IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga)
15. X. The Great Gate of Kiev
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
16. I. Andante sostenuto – Moderato con anima
17. II. Andantino in modo di canzone
18. III. Scherzo: Pizzicato ostinato – Allegro
19. IV. Finale: Allegro con fuoco
Every so often a disc comes along that really makes you sit up. This is such a disc. Tugan Sokhiev is back in his element dispensing star quality with almost every bar of this coupling. If the ability to create atmosphere, to transport, to excite, to provoke reassessment of a piece, are the first signs of greatness then Sokhiev’s beautifully heard and richly imagined account of Mussorgsky’s Pictures is very much the promise of things to come. It is the case throughout that the subtlety, the piquancy, the Frenchness of Ravel’s colourations appear disarmingly pristine – as in ‘why have I never noticed that before?’ One quibble amid everything that is so well judged (and so well played) is the increasing of tempo as ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ is finally flung wide. Why? No quibbles at all about the Tchaikovsky, though. Seriously, this is one of the most impressive accounts since the days of Markevitch and Mravinsky. Sokhiev makes real musical and emotional sense of the notoriously hazardous first movement. The listless, febrile nature of it reaches great heights in the development and coda where the hair-raising tremolando restatement of the first subject achieves real catharsis. Indeed, Sokhiev’s songful Toulouse woodwinds – so poetic in the Andantino – cannot for long disguise an air of desperation. The whizz-bang finale delivers that in spades.