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mats wrote:

Good to hear about your week with Mussorgsky Romy.  I came upon a mono Leibowitz / RPO RCA the other day.  It has its moments IMHO.  There seems also to be a new HMV Richter Sofia recital cd from HMV:   http://www.hmv.co.jp/product/detail/1887441 So, what did you like this week?  Any rivals to Abbado?

Well, the Richter’s Sofia recital is one of the greatest recordings of 20 century and it would not be shame to own any single released of them. I do not own that “Japanese Sourced” disc, I defiantly should. I have a dozen or so LPs of the Sofia concert and a regular Philips CD release. I know Philips “pressed” the CD a number of times but I did not which one was better or worse – I head only one – it was not as good as should be but it was what it was. I hope the Japanese “pressed” it better.

I did not relay look for “any” rivals to the young Abbado. There was not a lot of Mussorgsky recorded in his own “unabashed” version. Mussorgsky mostly played edited by Rimsky-Korsakov. The Rimsky-Korsakov is fine himself but they are really are different composers. Mussorgsky always resented Rimsky-Korsakov's preoccupations with “techniques” and Mussorgsky sound has a lot of row energy that are not necessary compatible with conventional “techniques” of orchestration and rules of harmony.

So, this week I ridded over decent Mussorgsky. It was the Richter’s Sofia, Prague and Moscow consorts. It was Horowitz 1949 and 1951 recordings, it was Abbado (including his Mussorgsky with BPO –not available in US- freaking shame!!!), Svetlanov, Melik-Pashaev, Lloyd-Jones, some Mussorgsky operas… It is also same that no one have written any suites around the Boris Gobunov’s music – it this it a phenomenal material for a good suites collection.

In the end, I have privilege to understand Russian language and I adore Mussorgsky songs, particularly if they are performed properly (that pretty much eliminates Visnavskay and Rostropovich). I paled quite a lot of them: the “historical”  Boris Christoff, the surprisingly pleasant Sergei Leiferkus, the sensational contralto Ewa Podless, the spectacular Koslovsky, the insulting Chaliapin… so others

Mussorgsky composed 67 songs and his songs are superbly important as Mussorgsky mimic with sound phonetics of the Russian language.  It is like the Janacek’s songs… the length his instrumental phrases was deeply bound with phonics of Czech pronunciation and take his songs in Gorman or English for instance they instantly stop making any sense.

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