The high-potency musical experience that is Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite is fully realized in Misha Rachevsky and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin’s electrifying performance. With their manically exacting rhythms, bold string sonority, and fierce energy and drive, the score seems torn free of its French roots to become a work of authentically Russian character. Listen to the lean and incisive string playing in the No. 2 Dance, Bolero and Finale. But there’s also melting lyricism from the Kremlin players, as in their heartfelt renderings of Don Jose’s aria, and in the final, tragic love duet. The percussion is just as much the star of the show–in fact, the section steals it with powerfully projected playing in the Torero and Changing of the Guard (here sounding like one of Shostakovich’s stirring military drills). The recording, made in a large acoustic setting, realistically conveys the full dynamic range and impact of the proceedings.
The disc concludes with two recording premieres. Shchedrin’s Russian Photographs (1994) presents vivid pictorial portrayals in the tradition of Mussorgsky’s famous Pictures at an Exhibition (Cockroaches throughout Moscow is especially graphic and humorous), while Glorification is an uneasy celebration composed for the 1995 World Economic Forum. Both pieces are in Shchedrin’s signature style, which, with its acerbic, stark sonorities and abrupt contrasts resembles the music of Alfred Schnittke. Rachlevsky and his players prove just as adept in these late works as in the ballet. If you don’t know any Shchedrin, and especially if you don’t know the Carmen Suite, you owe it to yourself to hear this.
