Tchaikovsky: Marche slave, Op. 31 (Slavonic March)

“This first of two volumes of Tchaikovsky transcriptions...has the exhilaration not just of the music itself...but of defiant medium-crossing. The glorious Serenade for Strings could not be better calculated for such forces, but creating stringiness on an essentially percussive instrument...brings an added zest.” Sunday Times, 17th June 2012

“Goldstone plays them all with great fluency and panache, if without quite the range of keyboard colour that such virtuoso vehicles really need.” The Guardian, 14th June 2012 **

“Kenneth Alwyn has secured exceptionally good playing from the London Symphony Orchestra ; the woodwind, in particular, shape their phrases most beautifully, and with first-class ensemble... The shaping of the music as a whole is very good, too, with a broad introduction to the Capriccio (making the triplets doubly difficult!), and effective dovetailing of the various tempos both in this piece and in the overture. In every respect, in fact, this is a first-class record.” Gramophone Magazine

“As I expected, the Tchaikovsky still comes up to demonstration standard with the final canons and carillon of 1812 as exciting and brash as anything since. The performances under Kenneth Alwyn are very good indeed, particularly 1812 (why has he been so neglected by the companies?) and at the new price the bargain is excellent.” Gramophone Magazine

“He starts at a surprisingly low voltage, although what his slower tempi lose energy they gain in detail and almost Nutcracker-like atmosphere. And, by contrast, the last movement has tremendous elan and features playing of demonstration quality. Excellent recording” Classical Music, 24th March 2012 ****

“…perhaps the most notable feature of these performances is their refusal to undermine the characterful in pursuit of the sensational. The Marche slave, for instance, is resonant and resolute but what you really come away humming are the fife and drum effects and brilliant trumpetings of the orchestration. The 1812 catches one off-guard straight away with its unusually "vocal" phrasing of the old Russian prayer at the outset and throughout the performance the song quotations sound "sung". Tempo (blistering) rather than trenchancy defines the main Allegro with the Marseillaise sounding unusually corny (deliberate?) in the trumpets. Tchaikovsky, though, is most evidently (and gloriously) Tchaikovsky in the Moscow Cantata. A vintage melody turns the first page of Russian history, illuminating it in that inimitable Tchaikovskian way.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2009

“Slavonic March, the most individual of all the pieces, gets the liveliest, quirkiest performance and the best sound.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2009 *****

"A first-class ...recording of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony...a very striking performance, Russian in feeling yet ..never going over the top ...holds back his big guns till just before the big unison horn entry.... It really is an epic moment with the fff of the four horns coming through as it seldom does .....slow movement is phrased very evenly....scherzo is like an arabesque, the string pizzicatos light and gentle.... Then the finale bursts on the listener.. with its power to shock at that first fortissimo—the sound hugely expansive." Gramophone

“Vanska and the Lahti orchestra are authoritative interpreters who convey the atmosphere and mystery of these extraordinary scores. They are magnificently recorded too” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“There's no denying that Russian orchestras bring a special intensity to Tchaikovsky, and to this Symphony in particular. But, in the past, we have had to contend with lethal, vibrato-laden brass and variable Soviet engineering. Not any more.
Pianist Mikhail Pletnev formed this orchestra in 1990 from the front ranks of the major Soviet orchestras, and the result here is now regarded as a classic. The brass still retain their penetrating power, and an extraordinary richness and solemnity before the Symphony's coda; the woodwind make a very melancholy choir; and the strings possess not only the agility to cope with Pletnev's aptly death-defying speed for the third movement march, but beauty of tone for Tchaikovsky's yearning cantabiles. Pletnev exerts the same control over his players as he does over his fingers, to superb effect. The dynamic range is huge and comfortably reproduced with clarity, natural perspectives, a sense of instruments playing in a believable acoustic space, and a necessarily higher volume setting than usual.
Marche slave's final blaze of triumph, in the circumstances, seems apt.
Pletnev finds colours and depths in The Seasons that few others have found even intermittently.
Schumann is revealed as a major influence, not only on the outward features of the style but on the whole expressive mood and manner. And as a display of pianism the whole set is outstanding, all the more so because his brilliance isn't purely egoistic. Even when he does something unmarked – like attaching the hunting fanfares of 'September' to the final unison of 'August' – he's so persuasive that you could believe that this is somehow inherent in the material. This is all exceptional playing, and the recording is ideally attuned to all its moods and colours.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“roof-raising... powerful... insistent forward mementum” Classics Today