BaL 07.06.25 - Mussorgsky: Pictures at an exhibition

[Petrushka]

Staying off topic (except I suppose insofar as the Ansermet stereo box has Pictures in it), this is quite entertaining and won’t take up too much of your time…

https://youtu.be/F8bTFmLbFjs?feature=shared

…I think I might not invest in this box until one or two ‘issues’ have been resolved.

I've got many boxed sets from all of the major labels (including Decca) and the only one in which I've found an error is in the 'Colin Davis - The Philips Years' box (which also contains Pictures). The correct CD is in the wrong sleeve, so not much of a disaster. Two other very minor errors in a couple of Decca boxes: Mahler 4 is printed as Mahler 2 on the spine in the Cleveland/Dohnanyi box and Beethoven is rendered as Beethvoen on the spine of one of the discs in the Chicago/Solti box. Perhaps I've either just been lucky or there are errors yet to be discovered!

[Pulcinella]

Back on topic, I have a recent (but lost) memory of seeing that one of the Ansermet recordings of Pictures was of a version I haven't heard of (and doesn't look like one in the Wiki list): French, double-barrelled?
Was I still hallucinating after my anaesthetic?

[Roger Webb]

........... Perhaps I've either just been lucky or there are errors yet to be discovered!

Running a CD shop meant I was on the front line of mistakes that escaped 'quality control' at the production companies. Apart from the 'bronzing' scandal other everyday mistakes were not too common - missing CDs, wrong CD, wrong booklet....quite a nice one was two discs in one case...of course we returned them to the company!

One amusing incident concerned a Bruckner two CD set, Sym 5 and 1. The 5th took up the whole of the first disc, the last movt. being on disc 2. I decided I wanted to hear the 1st Symphony so put the 2nd disc in the machine and went to press '2', but only one track was showing on the player. I reported it with Polygram, they said they were aware of the problem and new disc 2s were being made and would be dispatched asap. A few weeks later opening the post a card sleeve revealed a DG disc, having completely forgotten about the Bruckner problem I thought it was yet another promo disc, the usual use for which was as coasters for coffee mugs. About a month later I noticed the Bruckner 5 and 1 case sitting on the 'pending' shelf behind the counter, and the fate of the replacement disc 2 dawned on me.....lifting my coffee cup my worst fears were realised!

[smittims]

Thanks, Pulcinella,that's the one, though I distinctly remember a Stravinsky coupling.What an odd thing the memory is.

[oliver sudden]

A second-hand copy of the Les Siècles version arrived a couple of days ago. A curious thing. (The booklet is signed by the conductor... I suppose there might be a few such recordings being off-loaded nowadays.)

The title on the cover is given as 'Les Tableaux d'une exposition' with no indication whence this 'Les' might have sprung. (The title page on Ravel's manuscript, which can be consulted by all and sundry at IMSLP, doesn't have it.) There is talk in the booklet of changes made in the new Ravel Edition to rectify errors in the text from which Ravel worked, which raised one of my eyebrows, although I didn't spot anything at a first breakfast-accompanied hearing—all the traditional bars are there in Il vecchio castello and Baba-Yaga, for example.

It's generally very good indeed, though. Beautifully characterised and shaped. The string sound in the first Promenade was a bit glassy for my taste (as often happens when vibrato is taken out but perhaps insufficient thought has gone into other ways the sound might be animated) but the other choirs did a very nice job. Gnomus is very nicely shaped. The second Promenade is a severe test of the traditional Frenchness of the woodwind palette and I'm afraid neither the oboes nor bassoons manage a lean enough sound to get the particular blend that Cluytens' and Ansermet's bands have. (Strangely enough the oboes and clarinets aren't mentioned in the list of players and instruments in the booklet.) The saxophone is just given as 'Selmer Super Action 1950' although older, more characteristic models are used by quite a few players nowadays. Bydło is _very_ legato at the beginning—of course every note has a tenuto marking but (a) that's not quite how that works on a piano and (b) the pictorial aspect kind of goes out the window. Limoges is nicely speedy. A bizarre thing in the Great Gate: they halve the speed for the downward scales at figure 114, which Koussevitzky did as well but he preceded it with an enormous accelerando so the scales are still fast: here they're weirdly slow and sound very spelt-out.

But in general it's a lovely spirited version and very much worth a listen.

I had time to listen to the Koussevitzky on the tram to work as well. Also highly recommended. There seems to be a verse cut from Il vecchio castello, or did I imagine that? Lots of portamento in the strings (something that period-instrument performances generally haven't managed to pull off). Lots of rubato as well all the way through. The bassoon solo in Baba-Yaga is played by a clarinet, an octave higher. Perhaps this was an interim stage of things, between the saxophone Ravel ended up rejecting (in the manuscript and in the Boosey score it has a stave on the first page) and the bassoon version we know and love. (The manuscript at IMSLP already has the bassoon for the solo itself.)

[seabright]

There are several uploads on YouTube of the1930 Koussevitzky recording, all sounding very good, but I plumped for this one as the video illustrations changed throughout to suit each picture ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb6wRdbqBRw

I see from the previous page's list that this wasn't mentioned, unsurprisingly, as anything recorded on 78s is certain never to make it to BAL.

[HighlandDougie]

There are several uploads on YouTube of the1930 Koussevitzky recording, all sounding very good, but I plumped for this one as the video illustrations changed throughout to suit each picture ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb6wRdbqBRw

I see from the previous page's list that this wasn't mentioned, unsurprisingly, as anything recorded on 78s is certain never to make it to BAL.

Not so. Probably never likely to be the recommended version but Richard Wigmore waxed lyrical on the 31 May BaL about - and played a couple of excerpts from - the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals Trio's 1928 recording of Beethoven's Archduke Trio. I also remember someone - possibly Kenneth Hamilton - using Cortot as an example.

[oliver sudden]

Interesting that you mention Sokhiev because that, from the single brief clip played, was one that caught my ear on Saturday. I will listen again, because I was surprised that it didn’t, in the end, feature in the final short list.

I don't suppose anyone's still following but for completeness' sake: the Sokhiev arrived here a few days ago (I may have mentioned I enjoyed their concert performance of it in Köln some years back so was curious how it would transfer to CD) and from the listening I have been able to do I can't disagree with the decision not to return to it. The playing is lovely all the way through, both the tutti sound and the solo contributions, but for me it doesn't have enough spark, or cumulative impact over the piece as a whole, for a 'podium place'.

Indeed by the end of it I was impatient enough with the orchestration to return to my favourite Richter 1958 Budapest, which, gosh.