Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35 - Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain

Chronique

Antonio Pappano is a skillful Rimsky-Korsakov conductor with a knack for getting the best out of instrumental soloists. There is nothing at all wrong with the reading of Scheherazade from Pappano and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, but that is not what is drawing listeners to this recording, which landed on classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2024. Instead, it is Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, in "original versions of 1867 and 1880." These, recorded live here at the Parco della Musica in Rome, are very rarely heard. The 1867 version had the original title St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain, and the 1880 version was called Dream Vision of the Peasant Lad and was reworked by Mussorgsky for piano and voices for insertion into his unfinished opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi; it was finally orchestrated by Vissarion Shebalin for his completion of the opera in 1930, and that is what is heard here. These versions will be quite a surprise for listeners familiar only with Rimsky-Korsakov's 1886 arrangement. To quote Pappano: "It comes as a shock, after we have been accustomed to Rimsky-Korsakov's upholstered edition of Night on Bald Mountain, to hear this almost skeletally orchestrated music where the bones are so exposed with often very little meat around them. It brings a very nervous quality to the listener, because everything is so essential and absolutely distilled to very basic elements." Pappano has clearly made a close study of these works and delivers excellent performances that bring out the originals' almost Stravinskian-primitivist quality. Kudos also go to the Warner Classics label for clear live sound that doesn't damage the immediacy of the work. A must for Mussorgsky fans.

© James Manheim /TiVo