Moussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain/Pictures at an Exhibition
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Composer: Modest MussorgskyConductor: Lorin Maazel
Orchestra: Cleveland Orchestra
Orchestra: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Edition: Music CD
Published: 1990
CD Release Date: 1990-10-25
Music Label: Telarc
Music reviews of Moussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain/Pictures at an Exhibition
Music Review: A definitive look at Lorin Maazel's capabilities.
Rating: 5 Stars
With Lorin Maazel recently installed as the music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, there arises the question "What can we expect from this relationship?"
As a partial answer to the question, I have gone through my own library of Maazel recordings, covering a period of nearly 40 years and several orchestras and labels, as well as a fairly wide range of repertoire, to select this all-Mussorgsky album as one of the finest he has done to date. The album has been in my library for nearly a quarter-century in LP form, and then the CD release was added very early in the market launch of CDs in the U.S. nearly 20 years ago. The passage of time has not diminished in the slightest either the superb performances or the equally superb sonics of this Telarc recording, made with the Cleveland Orchestra.
Maazel's relationship with the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra was nothing if not "stormy"; as a result, his tenure there was fairly short-lived. But - in his favor - he is both a superb "orchestra builder" and a conductor not known for waywardness. (As an aside, anyone looking for a "wayward," unidiomatic performance of the Mussorgsky/Ravel "Pictures at an Exhibition" need look no further than Sergiu Celibidache's performance, on EMI, with the Munich Philharmonic. If nothing else, that Celibidache recording will provide one with an appreciation of this Maazel recording.)
Both Mussorgsky works on this recording are testimony to a number of interrelated factors: the warm acoustics of Severance Hall in Cleveland, the recording techniques of Telarc (using minmal microphone set-ups in ideal locations as pioneered by Robert Fine of Mercury Records), the muscianship of the orchestra, and the interpretive insights of Maazel. The ensemble work throughout is razor-sharp, with ultra-clean entrances and perfect balance of orchestral choirs. The recording provides a heightened sense of realism, in which the ability of Maazel to draw out the inner lines of the music is supported by the technical genius of Bob Woods and Jack Renner and their Telarc team in providing the acoustical ambience for appreciating the work of conductor and orchestra.
Nowhere is this combination made clearer than in the closing pages of "The Great Gate of Kiev" in "Pictures at an Exhibition." The final perorations of the brass choir, in the concluding coda, are simply stunning in their top-to-bottom fullness and clarity. To this day, I still marvel at the ability to hear every single instrumental line in this brass peroration; it is as if I could "focus" on any individual instrument of my choice. Surely, despite its age, this recording remains as one of the benchmarks for audio quality not soon to be surpassed.
By today's standards, this CD is rather "small measure" in terms of listening time (although it certainly wasn't in its original LP guise, or in the very earliest days of CDs). And, as much as I enjoy the Ravel transcription of "Pictures at an Exhibition," I also like to listen to both the Stokowski transcription and the Gortchakov one (the favorite of Kurt Masur, Maazel's predecessor at the NYPO) as well. But Maazel's reading of the Mussorgsky/Ravel remains the definitive one for me.
This CD is both a piece of "audio history" and a pair of stunning performances with the Cleveland Orchestra performing and sounding at its very highest level. Yes, definitely one of Maazel's best.
Bob Zeidler
Description of Moussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain/Pictures at an Exhibition
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