With acknowledgement to the late Karl Haas, who entitled some epsiodes of his music appreciation programs as “Rare and Well Done”.
HDTT has one of the best discographies of the music of Vasily Sergeievich Kalinnikov (1866-1901). Kalinnikov undertook a financially precarious music education in Moscow, where he came to the attention of both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Unfortunately, he became seriously ill with tuberculosis. He moved to a sanatorium at Yalta in the Crimea where fellow patients included the playwright Anton Chekhov and author Maxim Gorky. He never recovered from his illness and died aged only 34 years. He wrote two symphonies. A well-loved Melodiya recording of the First under Kirill Kondrashin is available from HDTT, along with the Second under Yevgeny Svetlanov. A third HDTT issue presents some of Kalinnikov’s orchestral works, and this one presents a 39 minute long suite for orchestra.
The suite is lighter, accessible and attractive orchestral fare, in a tradition familiar from Tchaikovsky and Anton Arensky who also composed in this form. Svetlanov was a committed advocate for this music. His great legacy is of course, his many recordings of music by lesser known Russian composers.
I cannot find a date for when this recording was made. The recording quality as presented by HDTT is rather richer than some of the other Svetlanov Soviet era tapings.
There appear to be no other recordings of this work. Nor is this recording listed as being currently available anywhere else, so it is fortunate that Svetlanov’s fine account has been made available by HDTT in such a good quality transfer.
24/352.8 DXD PCM Flac Digital Download
