A logical, albeit rare, association of symphonies by Balakirev, the composer of Islamey and Tamara He was the cornerstone of the Russian Mighty Five: César Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev, who in the 1860s banded together in an attempt to create a truly national school of Russian music; free of the stifling influence of Italian opera, German lieder, and other western European forms. In this album two prestigious conductors do them justice.
Symphony No.1 in C major is a romantic and well constructed work, performed by the early Karajan/Walter Legge team and the Philharmonia was certainly a crack ensemble at the time. The Second Symphony, which has, with some justice, been described as a paler copy of the First, brings an opening movement which under Rozhdestvensky’s baton moves forward strongly, generating much Slavic energy. Here tuttis are noticeably brash, but certainly not dull.
