"I owned the Ricci LPs of the two Prokofiev violin concerti presented here and wore them out in the 60's. They were unavailable for some years and I substituted versions by other great violinists. I was left unsatisfied for 45 years until Decca re-released these on CD. Ricci's performances are just as scintillating as I remembered them. Everytime I played them by someone else I kept hearing him in the background of my mind
making the concerti more exciting. Now, happily, I can consign
my other versions to the shelf. The other greats put me to sleep with their boring computerlike evenness. Ruggiero Ricci, however, keeps me perched on the edge of my seat, while he charges on through the battle, hurtling over and sometimes through, every obstacle put in his path, and he wins the day. This is heroic violin playing. This is just superb musicianship! These sets left me breathless. 'Damn the torpedoes! full speed ahead!'"
"Ernest Ansermet was in the peak of his directorial power in this decade . The real effort to guide and elevate the Suisse Romande to the most famous swiss orchestra ever was made for this admirable and not yet recognized conductor .
Ansermet had a special rapport for the Russian composers . In this recording we have the presence of the virtuosi violinist Ruggiero Ricci characterized with a cold temperament but gifted with a steel sound extremely adequate for this works, giving his best musical achievement of his brilliant career with both Prokoviev violin concertos .
Ricci and Ansermet knew to express that dark poetry and nostalgical mood demanded by Prokoviev . The First violin concerto is worthable but the crown jewel is the Second concerto, by far the best performing of this piece ever made in the story .
The Romeo and Juliet suite is simply amazing and one of the five best Ansermet achievements all along his brilliant career ; the other four artistic triumphs are in my personal opinion , The Firebird with the London Philarmonic of the late forties ; The three cornered hat with the Suisse Romande , the Fourth Symphony of Beethoven , Scherezade (one of the best in the market) and The fairy kiss .
Try to get this issue ; and you will be always rewarded.
The sound quality is simply astonishing : A-1.
Bravo for the sound engineers of Decca London ."
Lots of problems here, despite Ansermet's stylishness
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/24/2005
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Ricci's Italian style coldn't be more wrong for Prokofiev, and he isn't that secure technically, either. Ansermet's reputation for precision and stylishness in Russian music made me buy this set, but the orchestra is very sloppy and technically deficient--not up to current standards by any means. This one is a definite miss."
Legends are known to be much bigger than the facts that orig
Discophage | France | 09/13/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I would have liked to like these Ricci Prokofiev recordings more than I did, and I am even disappointed to be so disappointed. I started with the 2nd Concerto and it started very well. Prokofiev wrote very precisely worked-out tempo indications and metronome marks in all three movements. Both the first and second movements bear the same opening metronome mark: 108 (to the quarter-note and to the eighth-note respectively), while the third movement has 72 to the dotted half-note (equivalent to 216 to the quarter-note, e.g. double of 108). Furthermore, the opening section of the first movement contains exactly 108 quarter-notes (27 bars in 4/4 time signature), meaning that, played exactly at metronome, it would last 60 seconds, while the opening section of the second movement contains 216 quarter notes (18 measures at 12/8), which would require 120 seconds if played at metronome. So obviously these tempo relationships were very precisely thought of by the composer.
Yet I've never quite heard them played as prescribed by the score. Not surprisingly, Heifetz plays much faster (in his premiere recording with Koussevitsky from 1937 Heifetz Plays Strauss (Violin Sonata op. 18), Sibelius (Violin Concerto), Prokofiev (Violin Concerto 2), he takes the first section of the first movement in 0:55 and the first section of the second in 1:47, and in his 1959 remake with Munch, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Glazunov: Violin Concertos [Hybrid SACD] respectively in 0:51 and 1:42) and about all the others I've heard take it slower, anywhere between 1:05 and 1:10 for the first movement, and 2:05 and 2:13 for the second - and that includes "the classics" Oistrakh (Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2; Violin Sonata No. 2), Milstein (Les Introuvables Nathan Milstein), Stern's first two (Early Concerto Recordings, Vol. 2 and Prokofiev: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2), Perlman's three (Sergei Prokofiev:Sonatas for Violin/Concerto No. 2, Prokofiev: Violin Concertos, Stravinsky: Violin Concerto; Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2), and a number of modern ones. Now, I am not saying that violinists should play Prokofiev's Concerto with a metronome ticking in front of them. But it would be nice if at least these tempo relationships were broadly observed (which Heifetz does).
But it is not only a question of metronome. By exaggerating the contrasts of tempos between each section of the first movement, many of these violinists are also led to apply, in various spots, tempo changes that Prokofiev simply didn't write, especially when the writing goes from quarter-notes to sixteenth-notes (figure 8 and 11 of the score). Again, don't take me wrong. All these other, "non-observant" versions are perfectly valid, and even beautiful in their own right. Nobody would object if Prokofiev had written it as they play it. But my point is: he didn't. So there is a space in my collection for a version that would precisely observe these tempos and relationships - it would even be the main foundation on the basis of which all the others would have legitimacy to stray.
And this is where Ricci comes in. He plays the first section of the first movement in exactly 60 seconds, and as the movement unfolds, he never lingers. Consequently, all the tempo changes within the movement sound natural rather than abrupt, and he doesn't need to accelerate where Prokofiev hasn't prescribed to do so. No doubt this approach may shock those nurtured on other versions. They are likely to find Ricci uninflected and lacking lyricism. He certainly doesn't milk the second, lyrical theme (1:50) and, like Perlman for instance, make it sound like a wailing lament. But again: this is what Prokofiev wrote, and thus there is a strong legitimacy to it. Not the only version you'd want in your collection, but necessarily one of them. Or rather, it would have been so, if it had continued that way.
Unfortunately it all goes awry afterwards. In the second movement Ricci adopts a tempo markedly faster than the metronome (first section is played in 1:46). Consequently, not only does he disrupt the tempo relationship with the first movement, but, worse still, he is simply too pressed to let the movement's lyrical juices abundantly flow. Add to that that his intonation is at times painfully insecure (and in the movement's radiantly lyrical lines even the slightest imprecision is a killer) and his tone isn't very luminous. In no version I've heard, whatever their shortcomings, has the soloist failed to convey the movement's vibrant lyricism. Ricci does. The third movement he takes with a trudging gait, no doubt to convey the sense of a kind of heavy-footed rustic dance, but alas it only sounds heavy-footed, even plodding, and again his tone is coarse, painfully so at times.
I have no such qualms with Ricci's overall approach in the 1st Concerto. His tempos are rather on the fast side but not shockingly so. What IS shocking, though, and even amazing (in a negative way) is the impression of stiff fingers in some of the runs, the spots of painfully poor intonation (0:27 in the scherzo is appalling) and generally speaking the lack of luminosity in his tone. I've often read comments expressing puzzlement at the vagaries of Ricci's career and the fact that, after a skyrocketing start, in the later stages he seemed confined to lesser orchestras and labels. I am afraid that this disc provides part of an answer: on the basis of it, Ricci in 1958 appears as no better than a passable fiddler. In a way it is fitting that these recordings were reissued in the "Decca Legends" series: legends are known to be often MUCH bigger that the facts that originated them - the historical Troy was a small, muddy village.
The 1958 sonics are stupendous, the orchestra is a model of clarity, a rarely-heard wealth of instrumental details come it, but I can't believe the basses were so overly resonant in the original recording. I bought this CD for the Violin Concertos and I haven't done the same kind of comparative recording for the orchestral pieces (Prokofiev's 5th Symphony is not one I warm up to very much anyway). The 1961-66 sonics are equally stupendous, and in some spots of Romeo & Juliet it seemed to me that the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande lacked a measure of snap and bite.
Track Listings (14) - Disc #1