Aho: Symphony No 3; Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Dearh

Advantages: Best of Borodin's compositions
Disadvantages: Extracts only

...Prince Igor’s captivity. A faster horn based passage with a sinister percussion rhythm conveys the 'March' and 'Dance of the Plovtsian Maidens'. The overture builds to then return to the melancholic opening before reaching the climax with a drum roll and cymbal-clash. Also included on the album (track 3) is Galizsky’s Aria from the opera. The character of Galizsky, Prince Igor’s brother-in-law, is an easy-going, self-indulgent character. These traits are depicted in the aria by his deep self-satisfied laugh which is punctuated by a plucked string dance rhythm and drum beats. The aria is sung by Bass singer, Nicholai Ghiaurov accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra. The opera’s Polvtsian dances (track 5) are a combination of contrasting dance movements performed delightfully by the London Symphony Orchestra and chorus. Beginning... Read review

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Advantages: A great recording of popular and familiar works with excellent sound and performance values
Disadvantages: Absolutely none whatsoever

...Romanticism and forging a daringly original style, very raw and often dissonant. Also his vocal and operatic works employ a radical declamatory style based on everyday speech patterns. Mussorgsky was never a truly prolific composer. He wrote three song cycles, a set of musical pictures for piano called Pictures at an Exhibition, two operas, Boris Godunov and the unfinished Khovanshchina, the incomplete play Sorochintsy Fair and the orchestral fantasia St.John's Night on the Bare Mountain for the play The Witch. In 1867 he left the civil service, meaning to earn a living as teacher and accompanist, but took a position in the government's Forestry Department the following year due to financial difficulties. His continuing lapses into alcoholism, drawn from his mixing with wild intellectuals, finally caused his health to deteriorate and forced him... Read review

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Advantages: Contrasting programme music unified by a recurring theme
Disadvantages: None

...Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, born in 1839, was one of a group of Russian composers known as The Five, who were dedicated to producing a distinctive Russian style of music. Among Mussorgsky’s closest friends was the archietect and painter, Victor Hartmann. Hartmann died suddenly at the age of only 39. Mussorgsky was devasted by the news of his death. The following year of 1874, he attended an exhibition of his friend’s work. Walking around the exhibition, stopping and gazing at each of the pictures was to inspire Mussorgsky to compose an evocative and masterful tribute to his friend and his aristry. Mussorgsky composed Pictures at Exhibtition as a cycle of Piano pieces illustrating ten of Hartmann’s pictures linked by a recurring theme to show the viewer moving from one painting to another. It was later arranged for the orchestra... Read review

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