Search - Khatchaturian, Oborin, Oistrakh :: Aram Khachaturian: Concertos for Violin & Piano

Exceptionally poor sound quality

Alan Math | Provo, UT | 01/06/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The recordings on this CD seem to have been made in 1946 and 1947 and the sound quality is very bad. I'm sorry I bought it. The only reason to buy this CD is if you are a music historian. If you want a recording that you can enjoy listening to, buy a more recent one."

Significant performances, dismal sound

Discophage | France | 07/23/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I've reviewed this same live performance of Khachaturian's Violin Concerto by David Oistrakh and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under Kubelik, on its previous (and first) CD appearance on Multisonic (Concertos - Liszt/Prokofiev/Khachaturian). There it was paired with Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto, played at the same mammoth concert given on May 15, 1947 during the second Prag Spring Festival, which had Oistrakh also perform Brahms', no less!



Musically, it is an important testimony. As the work's dedicatee and first performer in 1940, Oistrakh had special authority in that composition. He made three studio recordings, one in 1942 with Alexander Gauk (reissued by Pearl, Khachaturian: Concerto for violin in Dm; Myaskovsky: Concerto for violin in Dm), and the two next ones with the composer conducting, in 1954 with the London Philharmonia on HMV (Khachaturian: Gayane Suite for orchestra No1; Concerto for violin in Dm or Khachaturian: Violin Concerto/Taneyev: Suite de Concert - David Oistrakh, Aram Khachaturian, Philharmonia Orchestra), and in 1965, for Melodiya (I have it on a French Chant du Monde CD from the late 1980s, volume 3 of their David Oistrakh edition, not listed here, but the same recording can be found on a Melodiya/BMG Twofer, Khatchaturian: Symphony No.1, Violin Con, on a Vox 2-CD set, Sibelius: Concerto Op47; Franck: Sonata for violin in A or on a Mobile Fidelity CD, David Oistrakh: Khachaturian / Sibelius).



I haven't heard the earliest one, but though Oistrakh's approach tends to broaden over the years, none of the two conductor-conducted versions lack vitality and brilliance in the outer movements. But this one with Kubelik is simply incredible. The outer movements dash forth with near-frenetic urgency, and the Prague Radio Orchestra bravely sustains the hectic tempo, even playing with explosive drive in the finale. Just compare the timings: in the first movement, 14:57 in 1965, 14:02 in 1954, 12:47 here; in the finale 10:07, 9:20 and 8:24. Even the slow-movement is forward-moving, while Kubelik and the orchestra mold the introductory phrases with angry muscularity. It entails no loss of the movement's harrowing lyricism. Oistrakh plays with passionate vehemence and longing plangency.



However, the technical equipment in post-war Prague seems to have been primitive. The sound is pretty awful, with some minor surface noise indicating that it was first engraved on acetates, and sonics so distant (ghostly even is some passages in the second movement)) as to make it sound like a 78rmp from the 1920s or earlier. Some of the orchestral details are to be reconstructed in one's imagination rather than heard, and without a score much more will be lost. On this Praga release the sound of the violin has been slightly improved, slightly clearer and better focused, but it doesn't make much difference - and the orchestra sounds as muffled as before; also, the Praga disc has a few minor dropouts of its own that weren't on Multisonic. As on the multisonic CD, the end of the second movement is cut off abruptly before the last phrase can die away - my guess is that the producers wanted to erase the applause that had all reasons to erupt after such intense emotion. It is jarring.



Things are hardly better in the Piano Concerto. Again, any recording by Oborin will be significant: as Oistrakh with the VC, he was the piece's dedicatee and first performer. This is also the only Khachaturian recording by Mravinsky, conducting here not his own Leningrad, but the Czech Philharmonic. Though made a year earlier, on June 1st, during the first and newly-founded Prague Festival, the recording offers slightly better sonic definition (that the Piano Concerto is much louder also helps) - but it still sounds like an antiquated 78rmp or an old air-check, distant, congested, with slight but constant static. Also, when you reach the third movement, suddenly you get what appears like a studio recording dubbed from an LP, surface noise and all. Applause erupts at the end, but you can clearly hear over headphones that it was spliced in. My hunch is that the original source was deteriorated or lost, and that the producers sneakily spliced in the missing part from an LP. And add to that that it plays a semi-tone too low. Ghastly.



And all the more regrettable as what you get is the sonic ghost of a performance of incredible drive and fire, one that is, in the outer movements, always faster than the composer's metronome marks - and all for the better, as it dispels any impression of bombast, in favor of hair-raising urgency, sometimes even at the expense of clarity and sensuousness, as in Mravinsky's phrasing of the first movement's second, folksy theme at 2:10: in accordance with the composer's instruction but unlike just about everybody else, he insists on keeping it at tempo (and, remember, his is faster than the one prescribed by the composer), and he takes it yet faster when it returns at 8:08. Likewise, Mravinsky plays the second movement at the prescribed tempo, e.g. significantly faster than the interpretive tradition that everybody save the composer seems to follow since William Kapell's pionneering 1946 recording (Prokofiev/Khachaturian or William Kapell Edition Vol 4: Prokofiev: Piano concerto no. 3 / Khachaturian: Piano concerto / Shostakovich: Preludes for piano). BUT - as Koussevitzky and, astoundingly, the composer, Mravinsky omits the flexatone. Too bad.



I was unable to track down who the substitute for the finale was: not, as I first suspected, Oborin's studio recording with the composer conducting (sadly it hasn't been reissued on CD, but can be heard on U-tube), and none of the versions I have from the 78rpm and mono era (Kapell, Levant, Lympany). I'd love to know: it's a bit untidy (both from soloist and orchestral soloists), but it's great, with fabulous energy - even at the semi-tone too slow.



Praga is all but candid about the defects of these recordings. The liner notes are very informative about the compositions, but nearly silent about the circumstances of the recordings, just giving the recording dates in small type. This is close to being a fraud. Multisonic was more open about it, concentrating its liner notes on the circumstances of the Prague Spring Festival. Avoid, unless you are a diehard collector of the any or all of the artists involved.

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