SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: BALAKIREV ORCHESTRAL WORKS on Marco Polo

BALAKIREV Chopin Suite / Overtures

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

Marco Polo 8.220324

This is the young Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s second recording of Russian music, recorded in June 1985, following the good notices garnered by its earlier Ippolitov-Ivanov album (pianomania: CD Reviews (The Straits Times, August 2015)). By this time, Choo Hoey’s young orchestra had shown much enthusiasm and flair in Russian music, its ranks populated by a sizeable body of Eastern European and mainland Chinese musicians.

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) was the founder and autocratic leader of the Russian nationalist composers called “The Mighty Handful” (Moguchaya Kuchka) or simply “The Russian Five”. They espoused the use of Russian folk music in their works with Mikhail Glinka as their pioneering demigod. They rejected Western compositional models, as practised by establishment composers such as Anton Rubinstein, and to a certain extent, Piotr Tchaikovsky.

Of the overtures on this disc, In Bohemia (sometimes called In Czechia, published 1906) is perhaps the least obscure. Based on an earlier Overture on Czech Themes (1867), it is a fantasy on three Czech folk melodies. This is a rather enjoyable piece, very typically Russian in style and orchestration (think Borodin or Rimsky-Korsakov rather than Dvorak or Smetana), not unlike Rachmaninov’s similarly-inspired Capriccio Bohemien of 1892-94. Also Russian in feel is the Overture to King Lear (1859), the only completed part of a proposed set of incidental music written for the Shakespearean play. High drama and tragedy are well captured in this substantial work, which SSO performs with much verve and fervour.

The opening of Overture on a Spanish March Theme (1886) with a piccolo solo has an Oriental flavour, based on a Moorish theme, but is soon dominated by a march (La Marcha Real, adopted in 1761 but dating from the 16th century) which football fans will recognise as the wordless Spanish national anthem still heard today in World Cup matches. Composed for a play that commemorated the expulsion of Muslims from Spain, the march riding on a wave of jingoism gets more than pride of place in this fantasy.

Balakirev was a great fan of Fryderyk Chopin’s music. His Chopin Suite comprises orchestrations of four Chopin piano pieces but in different keys from the original pieces. These include Preambule (Etude) in D minor, based on the E flat minor Etude (Op.10 No.6), Mazurka in B flat major (based on Op.41 No.3 in A flat major), Intermezzo (Nocturne) based on Op.15 No.3 in the same key of G minor, and Finale in D minor, based on Scherzo No.3 in C sharp minor (Op.39). These will be familiar to pianists, who will be slightly disorientated by their orchestrations. These served as the inspiration for Balakirev student Alexander Glazunov’s Chopiniana, which later formed the foundation for the Mikhail Fokine ballet Les Sylphides.

For some reason, this recording has not been reissued on the budget-priced Naxos label. SSO’s recording is still more than serviceable, and an enjoyable means to discover some curious byways of the Russian orchestral repertoire.