Tchaikovsky Symphonies

Mike, no one ever conducted Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies as well as Yevgeny Mravinsky with his great Leningrad Philharmonic.

BUT they're early 1960s DGG recordings, in reasonable stereo sound for their time, not the state of the art recordings that you ask for. They are amongst my very most prized recordings, but some may not respond to the orchestra's authentic 'Russian' horns, the 'whipcrack' attack of the violins, or the edge-of-the-seat performances.

Anyway, they're available as a 2CD DG Originals release, not to be confused with an earlier 1950s mono DG Leningrad set with Mravinsky conducting 5 and 6, and Sanderling conducting 4 (which may be even better, but in considerably less good sound).

Others may be able to recommend newer performances, but I doubt whether any modern orchestra could ever match the now-vanished Leningrad sound after 40-odd years of Mravinsky at the helm. Try to hear them before deciding!

Graham

I don't normally like old Russian recorded sound as it can be a bit ascerbic, but a few years back Radio 3 played a Mravinsky/Leningrad 6th and it was truly electrifying, and incredibly fast.

My own versions are the Mariss Jansons/Oslo set, which I was going to recommend as a modern alternative....but on checking they're from 1988. Could have sworn I bought them just the other day... sigh.

Dear Mike,

In my young days I listened to Klemperer's unique preformances on records of the 4 , 5 and 6. I neither understood the music or the performances.

In the 1980s EMI re-issued these rather strange performances on LP. an i bought them, and was staggered that I did not get the message as a young teenager! I was well acquainted with the russian school of performance centering on Mravinsky. That is compelling if you view the music as neurotic. In my view is it much more than that.

Though I would not state that Klemperer is more comelling than Mravinsky in these three symphonies, the great [Polish born, and Autro-Hungarian cultuturally] German Jewish conductor brings a much more Catholic sense of style to the music than any Russisn to date has. He treates the music to a phorensic examination of the detail [perfectly presented] that confronts the listener with a whole other world, and without tempo or dynamic distortion, or even the slightest sense that the music might be over-wraught emtionally. but is never-the-less emotionall devastating, even viewed from and archutectural and intellectual standpoint.

These are performances that make the emotional power ofrthe music fundamentally an example of how musical form and architecture are even more powerful than the short term musical crescendo or effect.

Not for the short excirement, or addreanlin fixed moment of fight or flight, but to place Tchaikovky's last three symphonies in the great cannon from Haydn to ... well Tchaikowvky and Brahms .., unique renderings, and, for many, far from the obvious first choice, but also once encountered, to be loved as as a sincere response of one of the most honest of all musicians - almost Luther-like in his directness. Possible to be viewed as the greatest yet musical comment from a musical perforemer [and sub-ordinate of Mravinsky during the early thirties in Leningrad as second conductor of the orcheatr Mravinsky so handsomely led for so long], but so far from conventioanl as to be more ridiculed than admired in general

ATB from George

PS: The recordings are from 1961 on EMI, so hardly modern, but not to be easily ignored either

George, when I listen to these last three symphonies, I hear structurally week music that overflows with drama and wonderful melody, which is how I hear the Russians play it.

The music is not weak, in emotion, or structure. Klemperer makes the claim recorded in sound, that the music is structurally supremely strong, and emotionally as accute as anything ever written in the line. But the emotion is drawn from the detail so lucidly balanced, and the structure so strategically stated, rather than over cooking the moment. The approach remains, to this day, unique.

No guarantee can be made that you will like it, but it should be heard, and you may find far more in Piotr I T-'s music than was imagined before. 

Only two pence worth, but by goodness those two pence were sent with the same kind of passion I find in old JS Bach's music. PIT really is JSB's equal in passion. The first since Bach, really, to be complete sincere rather than stylistically constrained, though stylish it certainly is. 

ATB from George

George, I'm having trouble finding the last three Tchaikovsky Symphonies by Klemperer.

For the 4th I would recommend Abbado's early DG recording with the VPO - an electric performance(and with good recorded sound) and one I've turn to for the past 25 years since I bought it.

It was issued twice on LP (original release and on the mid price DG Signiture label) and on CD, coupled with the 2nd symphony, on the budget price DG Resonance label. This is still available - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-Symphonies-Nos-2-4/dp/B00000E4H9/ref=sr_1_7?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1303142884&sr=1-7 

Karl

Dear Mike,

They are on UK Amazon. Their only current release is the almost unobtainable Japanese EMI/Toshiba label, so you have to accept new old stock or second hand. Mine were second hand and perfect, about three years ago now.

I'll send yopu the links by other means.

ATB from George

Got em George, thanks to the link you sent me.

Mike, no one ever conducted Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies as well as Yevgeny Mravinsky with his great Leningrad Philharmonic.

I've ordered these on CD, but found them today in my record collection.  It's got to be more than 10 years since I've listened to them.  The LPs came with a bonus disc that has Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty.

Listened to the 4th and Swan Lake.  Great fun - climax city and plenty of beautiful melody.

By contrast, the recording of the 4th by Masur has a distant perspective and drags, killing the drama.

Can't wait to get the Klemperer for comparison.

Got the CDs of the Mravinsky today.  The 5th Symphony is split between disc 1 and 2.

Sounds just like the LPs.

It turns out there are 4 different CD editions of the Mravinsky.  One of these has the three last symphonies on three seperate CDs.

In the end, the Mravinsky readings of these last 3 Tchaikovsky Symphonies do not satisfy.  The readings are passionate and full of life, but always sound episodic, lurching from one moment to the next.  The playing of the Leningrad is poor.  The trumpets always blare and the french horns bellow. The woodwinds are peppered with rhythmic irregularities.  Some say this is the authentic sound of a Russian orchestra, but that is a silly concept.  The Russians got the concept of the orchestra from Europe, and as is to be expected, they didn't do a good job of it.  In short, much of the playing is just plain ugly.

I found an LP of Abbado and the LPO doing the 5th Symphony, and am waiting for Klemperer readings of the 4th and 6th.  I am hoping for more luck with these. 

Gave a listen to the Abbado 5th, and it is several steps closer to what I am hoping for.  The LPO is faultless and the reading is taut and cohesive.  Very nice !

Mike, I may be wrong, but I can't think that Abbado ever conducted the LPO, if by that you mean the London band by that name. He was chief conductor of the LSO, one of their fiercest rivals, for several glorious years.

You are right Grahm55, it's the LSO.

These symphonies are a tough nut to crack.  I wish I could find Mravinsky conducting the LSO or LPO or Berlin or Concertgebouw or Chicago.  He has the emotion right, but I don't think his players are technically up to his vision. I listened to some excerpts on Amazon of Abbado Chicago doing the 4th.  This included a brass chorale in the final movement, and it sounded the best I have ever heard it.

I need to decide how many Tchaikovsky sets I am willing to pay for.

Right now Tchaikovsky is an itch I can't scratch.

Tchaikovsky wrote in these three [last] symphonies something of a musical credo. There is nothing "kitch" or synthetic about them, just the musical outpouring of a tortured soul employing the abstract musical form of the "symphony." They are far too significant to find that just one set of performances covers their many facets. They are fascinating at that level as well as for their expressive effect.

There could hardly be two such contrasted exponents of them as Mravinsky and Klemperer. In my view the extra-ordinay clarity and wisdom of the Klemperer recordings may well illuminate the Mravinskies for you. The best of the three from Klemperer strikes me as the Fifth, but each one has something new for the ear, and by new, all I mean is "old," as it comes from the music, and done without distortions. Rather the reverse, these are very accurate to the scores. But Mravinsky brings a true Russian style to them, though the Russian orchestras of yesteryear were qwite different sounding to the ones we are familiar with in the West. I always think of the Leningrad orchestra as sounding like a chariot pulled by six wild stallions! Somehow they keep the line going, and all ends well, but it is certainly a white knuckle ride along the way!

The surface temperature of Klemperer's recordings is on average rather cooler, though there are some moments of terrifyingly powerful climax, but these sections are more clearly differentiated from the preparations for the "clinch" and its resolution. In only one movement does Klemperer approach the quick tempi of Mravinsky, and that is in the Finale of the "Pathetique."

But sweep of the vision and the compelling forward momentum is something to revel in. Klemperer was one of the few German conductors to really take Tchaikovsky seriously in the 1930s at a time when these symphonies were often not much valued in the West. Arguably Furtwangler took up the Pathetique at the time because of the spur of Klemperer's powerful performances mainlky at the State Opera in Berlin. Oddly the usually volatile Furtwangler for once produced a wonderful but wonderfully wise and lucid performance of this in his 1938 HMV gramophone recording recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - almost confirming his cue had come Klemperer!

Another set that comes to mind as being grand is on Chandos [an English independent label], recorded by Mariss Jansons [who himself first worked in Leningrad]. In this case the orchestra is the Oslo Philharmonic, and if the orchestra was not well known internationally before this release, suddenly the fortunes rose as a result. Tip-top playing, fiery readings from the young Jansons, and fine recordings made in the main concert hall in Oslo.

Keep us posted on how you get on with these please dear Mike.

ATB from George

Mike, I'll be careful about any further recommendations for Tchaikovsky symphonies for you, as the Mravinsky set wasn't to your liking - although I did warn you above about the 'flavour' of the playing.

That said, Abbado's Vienna Philharmonic recording of the Fourth, as recommended by Karl already, is quite superb: I'm amazed that it hasn't been rereleased in the Originals series. I haven't heard Abbado's subsequent Chicago (or other?) readings, but that early Vienna account was remarkable.

Graham 

Graham makes a very valid point as we all have different tastes. Fortunately for me, I have a rather catholic taste in musical performances, so that one day I am in the mood for a "Klemperer" and on another ready for a "Kleiber" so I am blessed, but all any of us can do is make suggestions, and these may or may not fit the tastes of the person for whom the suggestions are made.

It really is a bit like that!

ATB from George

Graham55, I very much enjoy the Mravinsky set and will listen to it again, and more than once.  I think he has a fine grip on the emotion of the music.  But I am very keen to hear them done with an orchestra that has the sound I am more accustomed to.

I am thinking to get two Abbado sets, the one with Vienna and the one with Chicago (I am an admirer of the Chicago brass).

Mikhail Pletnev and his Russian National Orchestra recorded a spectacular 6th for Virgin, which marries vision with amazing technical finesse. A few years later, the same team did the whole set for Deutsche Grammophon - slightly more clinical readings but with their fair share of admirers. Personally, I kind of like the 5th but have trouble connecting with the other symphonies although I do like to revisit them occasionally. 

EJ

So you blame Klemperer, that mighty musical giant, because of three discs you don't like and a clerical cock-up!

How can we possibly have a reasoned conversation on that sort of basis, though of course I sympathise with your financial lose? I don't yet give up ...

Somehow I think you should be locked in the same room as me [containing my iTunes collection], and you would either leave with a shortly evolving nervous break-down, or a realisation that there are many great ways of skinning cats. [Apologies to vegetarians and cat lovers for the un-musical analogy].

ATB from George

PS: Please don't close the thread yet, dear Richard. This is far from mined out ...

Once again I have managed to be a fool.  George, please disregard.

I will send the CD back and try again.

Please forgive me.

I thought about this some more, and decided I owed you an explanation.  It's not an excuse, there can be no excuse for rudeness.  I had a terrible day yesterday and got home to find the cd had arrived.  The cover was correct.  I was quite excited and put the CD on right away, and unfamiliar music poured out of my speakers.

I put all the frustration of a crappy day into one nasty post, then took a nap.  When I awoke, my first thought was to go and remove the offending post, only to find that you had already seen it.  The damage was done.

I enjoy our exchanges quite a bit George, and I hope one bad day won't ruin that.  I usually have the good sense to avoid the forum when I'm in a bad mood, but not this time.  To be honest, it has been so long since I fell into a bad mood that I forgot to be on my guard.

The worst possible outcome would be if I put you into a bad mood as well, putting an end to our friendship.

Please don't let that happen.

Don't worry Mike. We all have off moments!

Now back to your thread and the glories Fourth, Fifth and Sixth from Uncle Piotr Illych!

ATB from Goerge

I just ordered DVDs of Karajan and Berlin doing the 4th, 5th and 6th.

Given what I know of the conductor and orchestra, I think this may be just what I am looking for.

Abbado / Chicago Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 arrived today.  It is certainly the best played version I have heard to date.  The Chicago brass and horns are absolutely stunning.

I have grown to love the Abbado Chicago Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4.  It is a well balanced interpretation full of drama and pathos, and the orchestra is fantastic.  Hearing the Chicago Symphony in full swing is always a special treat.

Mike,

If you like Tchaikovsky's 4th with Abbado/Chicago, you might want to look for Abbado's 1976 recording of the 4th with the Wiener Philharmoniker. It received a rosette from Penguin, and is regarded by some as the better of the two options. I have not heard the Abbado/Chicago, so I cannot comment on the differences, but I have enjoyed to the Abbado/Wiener recording for many years. YMMV.

BBM