Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition; Night on Bald Mountain (Fritz Reiner)

Information

• Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel)
• Tchaikovsky - Marche Miniature
• Mussorgsky - Night on Bald Mountain (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov)
• Borodin - Prince Igor, opera: Polovtsian March
• Tchaikovsky - Marche Slave
• Kabalevsky - Colas Breugnon, opera, Op. 24: Overture
• Glinka - Russian and Ludmilla, opera: Overture

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Fritz Reiner, conductor

Date: 1957; 1959

Label: RCA

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Review

This is much better value for money from BMG. It has, emblazoned on the sleeve, "Two complete Living Stereo LPs on a single disc!" In fact RCA some years ago issued this self-same coupling on an RCA mid-price release (RCA 09026-67958-2). In the CD format there is absolutely no difference in sound quality between the audio CD in the older coupling, and the SACD version played on a standard CD player. Any difference is said to be dependent on having an SACD player.

Reiner’s recordings in this series have been enthusiastically received by music-lovers. At last they have now been allowed to appreciate what superlative playing Reiner was able to conjure from the Chicago orchestra.

On this well-filled disc we have performances of Russian orchestral repertoire. These would be difficult to better anywhere and with recordings which now more than adequately show what the engineers were able to get from Symphony Hall in Chicago. Let us hope that BMG will eventually issue all of the Living Stereo series of recordings. They often seem to start, and then fizzle out in mid-stream. There are many wonderful goodies still waiting for us in the RCA vaults, some of which have yet to see the light of day on CD; a tragedy for all, listeners, artists and the company itself, through lost revenues.

The Living Stereo recordings were originally mixed down from three tracks to two. Now that Surround Sound has arrived, BMG is reissuing these recordings with the three discrete channels, left, right and centre being separate rather than mixed down to the two channel sound which we are all used to. Having the central channel available improves the sound quality somewhat, but the effect is minimal. Indeed in some of these recordings, the original engineers only recorded the left and right channels, so the SACD and CD versions are identical. One good check of your equipment is a blind test to see if you can pick out the two channel recordings – I failed.

Like many of Reiner’s recordings, the performances have never been surpassed, and the Pictures is one of these. I know that there are many first class performances around, by eminent conductors and ensembles, but for me, this one can hold its head up against any comers. I would never say that this is the only performance to get because in such a work there are so many perfectly valid ways of presenting it to the public. Nevertheless, the whole programme is in this category, and if I was to single out one choice from this disc it would be the Kabalevsky. There has never been a performance to compete with this one. It is simply superb.

-- John Phillips

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Modest Mussorgsky (21 March 1839 – 28 March 1881) is a Russian composer. Composing without training in his teens, he met several composers, with whom he later made up The Five, and received his first composition lessons from Mily Balakirev in 1857. His major works include the symphonic poem Night on Bald Mountain (1867), the great opera Boris Godunov (1868), and the famous piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). His 65 songs describe vivid scenes of Russian life. After Mussorgsky’s death, his works were published in drastically edited form, purged of their distinctive starkness and unorthodox harmonies.

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Fritz Reiner (December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was an American conductor, best known for his work with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of which he was music director from 1953 to 1962. Reiner studied piano with Béla Bartók, along with composition, conducting and percussion. He went to the United States as principal conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony (1922–31) and from 1931 to 1941 was head of the opera and orchestral departments at the Curtis Institute of Music. Before going to Chicago he was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony (1938–48) and of the Metropolitan Opera (1948–53). 

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