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Stokowski transcriptions mussorgsky bluray11/28/2023 ![]() ![]() Night on Bare Mountain is no less absorbing, with the demonic elements of the music brought vividly and nightmarishly to life. To record Stokowski’s Symphonic Synthesis on themes from the opera must have been something of a labour of love for Knussen and the attention to detail he lavishes upon Stokowski’s brilliant orchestration is gripping in its effect. Ultimately that fascination was to spill over into his own music when he borrowed the chords from the opening of the Coronation Scene to commence his own fantasy opera Where the Wild Things Are. There is indeed an element of the fantastic in Boris Godunov that inhabits Knussen’s own music also. I recall an interview with Oliver Knussen some years ago in which he spoke about his childhood discovery of Boris Godunov and the fascination he had felt for the opera ever since. Indeed, my only significant qualm in the whole piece is Bydlo, where Knussen’s disconcertingly brisk tempo gives more the impression of a cart hurtling alarmingly out of control down a hillside rather than lumbering slowly into view. The concluding bars are nothing short of magnificent. On first hearing, The Great Gate of Kiev can come across as slightly lacking the homogeneity of the Ravel but the sheer spectacle of the piece remains gloriously intact. Glissandi are employed to subtle but telling effect in Catacombs where the strings slide eerily from the second to third chord whilst in Baba Yaga the scoring is wonderfully garish with effective use of flutter-tonguing in the brass. In Samuel Goldberg and Schmuyle, Stokowski chooses to use the trumpet in similar fashion to Ravel but alternates the nasal tones of the brass instrument with the flute listen to the effective use of trombone glissandi upon the return of the initial string theme. ![]() The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks is dazzling in its use of instrumental effect. Gnomus is as sinister as you will ever hear, the creature snarling its way with a sense of palpable evil. Knussen and the Cleveland are both in their element, revelling in the kaleidoscopic opportunities Stokowski affords. Blocks of orchestral sound are often juxtaposed to considerable effect, as Colin Matthews puts it in his booklet note, painting with “broad brush strokes”. Stokowski chose to leave out “ Tuileries” and “ The Market Place at Limoges” on the grounds that they were too French in style and creates a canvas that is altogether more bold, audacious and muscular than Ravel’s. It is an exhilarating shock to take in the sheer imaginative range of vivid, strikingly colouristic yet at times deceptively subtle use of huge orchestral forces. Indeed the familiarity that surrounds the Ravel is such that at first hearing the Stokowski comes as something of a shock to the system. ![]() Although there were a number of orchestrations in existence at the time, the former’s assertion that no one had been successful in exploiting the inherent Russian character of the music gave Stokowski the justification and motivation he needed to produce a version that is at times startlingly at odds with the more familiar Ravel. It could be said that Stokowski’s transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition was in some ways a reaction against Ravel’s orchestration which had been completed some seventeen years earlier. 1995/1996, Severance Hall, Cleveland, USA Night on Bare Mountain – Witches’ Sabbath (1940) Symphonic Transcriptions by Leopold Stokowskiīoris Godunov – Symphonic Synthesis (1936)Įntr’acte to Khovanshchina (Act IV) (1922?) Déjà Review: this review was first published in October 2004 and the recording is still available. ![]()
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