Tchaikovsky; Beethoven - 1812 Overture; Capriccio Italien; Wellington's Victory (Antal Doráti)

Information

Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; Ludwig van Beethoven

1. Tchaikovsky - 1812 Festival Overture, Op. 49
2. Commentary to the 1812 Overture / sound effects / bells
3. Tchaikovsky - Capriccio Italien, Op. 45
4. Beethoven - Wellington's Victory, Op. 91: I. Battle
5. Beethoven - Wellington's Victory, Op. 91: II. Victory Symphony
6. Commentary to Wellington's Victory / sound effects

University of Minnesota Brass Band

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

Antal Doráti, conductor

Date: 1958; 1955; 1960

Label: Mercury

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Review

Although not normally given to fits of nostalgia, I have to confess that this CD found me beaming back to my teenage years, poised between the two modest speakers of a Bush record player and eager for an aural bombardment. Both battle pieces incorporate cannon fire recorded at West Point, with Wellington's Victory adding antiphonal muskets and 1812, the University of Minnesota Brass Band and the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller carillon. In a recorded commentary on the 1812 sessions, Deems Taylor explains how, prior to 'battle', roads were blocked and an ambulance crew put on standby. The actual weapons used were chosen both for their historical authenticity (period instruments of destruction) and their sonic impact, the latter proving formidable even today. In fact, the crackle and thunder of Wellington's Victory could easily carry a DDD endorsement; perhaps we should, for the occasion, invent a legend of Daring, Deafening and potentially Deadly.

Dorati's conducting is brisk, incisive and appropriately dramatic. 1812 in particular (Dorati's second Minneapolis recording of the piece for Mercury) suggests a rare spontaneity, with a fiery account of the main 'conflict' and a tub-thumping peroration where bells, band, guns and orchestra conspire to produce one of the most riotous key-clashes in gramophone history. Capriccio italien was recorded some three years earlier (1955, would you believe) and sounds virtually as impressive. Again, the approach is crisp and balletic, whereas the 1960 LSO Beethoven recording (originally coupled with excellent versions of the overtures Prometheus and Leonore No. 3) triumphs by dint of its energy and orchestral discipline.

As 'fun' CDs go, this must surely be one of the best – provided you can divorce Mercury's aural militia from the terrifying spectre of real conflict (such as we see almost daily via the media). Wilma Cozart Fine has masterminded an astonishingly effective refurbishment while the documentation – both written and recorded – is extremely comprehensive.

— Gramophone

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Romantic Russian composer. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin. Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression.

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Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. Beethoven is acknowledged as a giant of classical music, and his influence on subsequent generations was profound. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas and 16 string quartets. Many of his most admired works come from the last decade of his life, when he was almost completely deaf.

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Antal Doráti (9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born American conductor. He was a student of Bartók, Kodály and Leó Weiner at the Liszt Academy. Doráti made his American debut in 1937 and was music director of the American Ballet Theater from 1941 to 1945. He went on to conduct the Dallas Symphony (1945–49), Minneapolis Symphony (1949–60), BBC Symphony (1963–66), Stockholm Philharmonic (1966–70), Washington National Symphony (1970–77), Royal Philharmonic (1975–78), and Detroit Symphony (1977–81). Over the course of his career he made over 600 recordings.

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