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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
In his score for Romeo and Juliet Prokofiev is on top form. Here we see him triumphant after dealing with his own personnal battles. His modernist musical impulses were at odds with his desire to return, after self imposed exile, to Russia. Here he find resolution by giving late romanticism an early modern bite, with a profusion of fine tunes. What to compare it with? Well Imagine that Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' is his children's cartoon: this is his full lenght film epic.
What could be more appropriate than to hear a performance by one of Russia's great Ballet Orchestras? There is also some irony, as this Ballet company rejected Prokofiev's proposed Ballet in 1934. The 1990 orchesta aquit themselves well. The ballet is presented as it is danced. This has lead some critics to complain that there is less depth of interpreation that in some other recordings. What is true is that there is no added weight of interpretation here to make up for the lack of the visual spectacle of the dancers.
I find that this approach works well. This is a thoroughly romantic performance with an added edge of Russian grit. The sound is good, but perhaps a little shrill in the upper registers. A few instruments are partly muted the mix: for example the mandolins in the Dance With Mandolins, Disc 1 Track 23. However it is a satisfying sound overall.
The uncompromisingly balletic approach works excellently from Act 1 Scene 2 to Act 3 scene 2. However it is a little less satisfying at either end of the Ballet, most tellingly at its conclusion. At this point, which culminates in Juliet's death, a greater emotional palette would have been appropriate. As it is the last few scenes have an oddly stoney faced resilience to them, almost an out of place truimphalism. However, for three quarters of the performance there are few causes for complaint. Act 1 scene 2, with its succession of dances at different tempos is especially well executed, bar the muting of the mandolins, as mentioned above.
All in All a fine set which will appeal to listeners who prefer to add a little interpretation of their own while listening, rather than have every emotion imposed on them by the conductor.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
this is the one to get
31 Jan 2003
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
i've heard several recordings of prokofiev's most famous and most delightful ballet, and this is by far my favorite. unlike the usual "concert" approach to this score (maazel, ozawa, thomas), which emphasizes the dramatic narrative and treats the music as a massive tone poem, gergiev and his orchestra infuse the music with an irresistible dance energy, exactly as it would be played in a ballet performance. i often found myself tapping my foot or whistling along with the music, carried away by the spirit. the recorded sound is crisp and clear, and the orchestral playing is superb. absolutely enjoyable, start to finish. (a single cd release of excerpts from this two cd recording is also available from philips.)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
An all-but-definitive Romeo and Juliet
12 Mar 2010
Format:Audio CD
Valery Gergiev has in common with Bernstein that his charisma was recognized the moment he stepped on the podium, and it's no wonder that he became a superstar in the post-Soviet era. Having just reviewed Gergiev's recent Romeo and Juliet with the London Sym., I returned to this early version with the Kirov Orch. from 1990. Both are superlative, but the younger Gergiev had a more natural way with the score and was less prone to making a show piece of every number. Playing Prokofiev's complete ballet score was rare in the West. I attended a riveting performance by Gergiev and the Kirov, and the program notes said that the complete score had never before been played in Carnegie Hall.
What stands out about this reading is that Gergiev, an extremely intelligent thinker about the long line, handles the rise and fall of the ballet so that it doesn't peak too early, doesn't turn cloying, and never exhausts the listener (he's spoken to all these points in interviews, although the subject was Mahler). Each number is exciting, but it takes its place in a very satisfying overall scheme. No other reading that I know of is so successful on that front, not even Gergiev's remake. Prokofiev's music is scintillating, and it never lets up, but Gergiev balances the lesser climaxes with the greater ones. I apologize for sounding so abstract when the score is luscious, romantic, and swooningly gorgeous. Yet I think anyone who listens for it will notice how beautifully Gergiev has structured the performance. It's welcome in both his readings that he avoids vulgarity and luridness, always a temptation in this crowd-pleasing music.
I used to complain that the sound from Philips, as recorded in St. Petersburg, was a bit rough and coarse. The latest remstering has taken care of that, but you won't mistake the recording as a sonic blockbuster. It doesn't need to be. On its own, this is an early indication that Gergiev deserves his superstar status.
What stands out about this reading is that Gergiev, an extremely intelligent thinker about the long line, handles the rise and fall of the ballet so that it doesn't peak too early, doesn't turn cloying, and never exhausts the listener (he's spoken to all these points in interviews, although the subject was Mahler). Each number is exciting, but it takes its place in a very satisfying overall scheme. No other reading that I know of is so successful on that front, not even Gergiev's remake. Prokofiev's music is scintillating, and it never lets up, but Gergiev balances the lesser climaxes with the greater ones. I apologize for sounding so abstract when the score is luscious, romantic, and swooningly gorgeous. Yet I think anyone who listens for it will notice how beautifully Gergiev has structured the performance. It's welcome in both his readings that he avoids vulgarity and luridness, always a temptation in this crowd-pleasing music.
I used to complain that the sound from Philips, as recorded in St. Petersburg, was a bit rough and coarse. The latest remstering has taken care of that, but you won't mistake the recording as a sonic blockbuster. It doesn't need to be. On its own, this is an early indication that Gergiev deserves his superstar status.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Superlative achievement!
23 Sep 2010
Format:Audio CD
With this outstanding work, Prokoviev faithfully reaches the synthesis between the brilliant dryness of his first Op. and the overwhelming poetical feature that now besieges instances more lyrically relaxed. This impressive kaleidoscopic range that allowed him to cross over with fluidity about the evocation of the scenes as a whole such the party in the house of the Capuletos , Verona's carnival that really implies a lyrical focus that accompanies the secret encounters of both protagonists that demands an instrumental decorative righteousness to this cantabile line bathed in melancholy.
It would be said that no other composer in the past captured with such incisive, demolishing expressiveness and clear-sighted poignancy, the most devastating tragedy of the literature.
Prokoviev's compositional powers and his overpowering imagination could express and depict with admirable detail the entire spirit of these young lovers who had everything to be happy; but as all of us are aware Shakespeare remarks over and over the impossibility to achieve the bliss in the western world, like the Guinevere's forbidden love.
The performance given by Valery Gergiev (August 1990)is splendid and memorable. He and his orchestra devoted themselves with astounding fruition, dynamism, mesmerizing flair and steeled conviction the minimum facets of this extraordinary ballet.
I must say that I really got yesterday afternoon this memorable recording and I have to subscribe my unison admiration by such artistic feat.
It's absolutely impossible for you my dear reader not to get this sumptuous and amazing register. The format, marvelous sound and the information contained in the booklet make of this double album a gratifying and successful version,
Unmissable.
It would be said that no other composer in the past captured with such incisive, demolishing expressiveness and clear-sighted poignancy, the most devastating tragedy of the literature.
Prokoviev's compositional powers and his overpowering imagination could express and depict with admirable detail the entire spirit of these young lovers who had everything to be happy; but as all of us are aware Shakespeare remarks over and over the impossibility to achieve the bliss in the western world, like the Guinevere's forbidden love.
The performance given by Valery Gergiev (August 1990)is splendid and memorable. He and his orchestra devoted themselves with astounding fruition, dynamism, mesmerizing flair and steeled conviction the minimum facets of this extraordinary ballet.
I must say that I really got yesterday afternoon this memorable recording and I have to subscribe my unison admiration by such artistic feat.
It's absolutely impossible for you my dear reader not to get this sumptuous and amazing register. The format, marvelous sound and the information contained in the booklet make of this double album a gratifying and successful version,
Unmissable.
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