Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rough Hewn Rite - the essence of the work, 18 Oct 2003
Valery Gergiev is a passionate conductor and it is somewhat of a surprise to hear his interpretation of Stravinsky's landmark work. This is an unusally quiet, brooding birth, less the outwardly dramatic, sonic bursting performances to which we've grown accustomed. While we wait for what Salonen and the LA Phil do with this work in the new acoutically wondrous Disney Hall in Los Angeles there is much to be learned and absorbed by this magnificently understated recording. Gergiev presents the ballet score more as a symphonic poem, uncovering many delicate moments rarely heard in this masterpiece. Not that he is afraid of massive outbursts - those are captured by him in this spacious recording brilliantly. The Kirov Orchestra obviously has played this piece countless times, evident in the inner voices of the orchestra sounding so completely secure. Just take the time to listen to this performance in a darkened room at night, and the effect is astonishingly mysterious and strangely "beautiful". The Scriabin without the light effects has always seemed to me to be a work truly created for the recording industry! There is little structure to POEM OF ECSTASY but it is brimming over in lush colors and eroticism. Not a great work, but Gergiev plays it for all its kitschy goodness and makes it wholly believable. This recording of the POEM is a gold standard for orchestral colors.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A sonic spectacular and a really personal interpretation, 4 Jul 2009
Previous reviewers on Amazon.uk are uniformly positive about this disc. There are far more reviews on Amazon.com but they include some ridiculously harsh and derogatory judgements about the sound, the interpretation and the playing. Too many people on Amazon get their kicks by being superior and snooty about first-rate artists, so let's dispense with their criticisms first. OK; the tam-tam is momentarily lost and out of time right at the beginning of the "Dance of the Earth" and just occasionally the horns are underlit by the engineer, but these tiny flaws pale into insignificance beside the raw energy, commitment and passion of this performance. What so many dolts call "mistakes" are the results of Gergiev's interpretation; he is no slave to the score but uses it as a springboard to deliver a thrilling, newly thought-out version of this seminal work. Thus the cross-rhythms are played with, unwritten pauses are introduced (as before the final chord) and tempi subtly distorted to create specific effects: that's what a conductor is supposed to do, I thought, as long as it is artistically justified - and here it certainly is. I ask you, is it really likely that a conductor of Gergiev's eminence, directing his own orchestra, who have played this difficult piece countless times, would mess up so badly given three days to record less than an hour's music? The sound is an engineering triumph; so much is intense and startling, and so much detail emerges within a dynamic spectrum that ranges from a true ppp to a real fff that this is an audio-buff's dream. The clarity of the sound allows us to hear that Gergiev is at times a bit vocal, as is his wont, but he's hardly the first conductor to supply a few ostinato grunts. To cap it off, we have spectacular performance of Scriabin's post-Wagnerian/Debussyian indulgence "The Poem of Ecstasy": a lush, dreamy account which flowers into a magnificent climax.
Ignore the carpers; this is a superb disc.
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11 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an explosive and gripping interpretation, 18 Jan 2002
I thoroughly recommend this CD. Gergiev brings outthe intense drama and theatricality of this landmark of 20th century Music. If you thought you knew it I would recommend buying this and listening to it. You're in for a shock! From the opening it takes hold of you and casts you into a maelstrom of imagination and musical inventiveness. That Stravinsky was a genius is rarely disputed. This piece, with all its gory detail, its hypnotic rhythmns and raging dissonances, is undoubtedly a masterpiece of contemporary classical music.
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