Search - Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, Daniel Nazareth :: Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Borodin: Night on Bare Mountain: Polovtsian Dances; In the Steppes of Central Asia

A low rent mansion

David A. Baer | Indianapolis, IN USA | 05/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As I settle in to write this review, perfectly suitable used copies of this early Naxos CD are going for a dollar on amazon.com. Where do you find value like that? It's like scratching around for an affordable one-room apartment and then stumbling on a tidy mansion whose owner will turn over to you for $[...]/month.



Mussorgsky and Borodin, 19th-century Russian nationalist composers both of them, are often paired on musical offerings, not least because Borodin's pieces are short enough to require a complement. These full-flower Romantic pieces are a great introduction for listeners who see nothing interesting in 'classical' music. The Russians are, if anything, interesting.



Mussorgsky's 'Pictures' is also an enduring anthology of something close to tone poems. Originally written for keyboard, Ravel orchestrated the works for a large assembly of musicians.



Daniel Nazareth and the Slovak Philharmonic are precise, spirited, and convincing. There is absolutely nothing sub-par about this recording, which helped to establish Naxos as a budget line on its way to something big."

Unpretentious, now superceded by Naxos' new SACD version

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 08/21/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This 1987 recording was one of Naxos's first publications and as such was quite a success: The Slovakian orchestra directed by Indian conductor Daniel Nazareth presents Ravel's famous orchestration of Mussorgsky's piano masterpiece in a lively, unpretentious way that makes the character of the individual pieces very obvious and is therefore ideal for the "beginner" just getting to know this music. There is some very colorful brass playing which is worth hearing. As the "Exhibition" only lasts a good 35 minutes, Naxos have also provided some interesting "encores": The Rimsky-Korsakoff version of "Night on a Bare Mountain" with its frantic, partying witches is a loud and noisy piece with a quiet close that bears listening to any number of times. The two pieces by Borodin are full of tunes that seem familiar and have in fact often been used in modern songs. The sound of the CD is acceptable, but no more than this: If you want a contrast, just listen to Naxos' new Ukrainian recording of the Mussorgsky with Theodore Kuchar at the baton. Here, the brass and the percussion jump out at you with incredible clarity and force, the result both of superior playing from the Ukrainian National Symphony Orchestra and of DSD recording for Super Audio standard."