Kabalevsky’s music is tuneful, undemanding, and at least on this disc, comparatively forgettable. The First Piano Concerto seems to take a page from Prokofiev’s Third, inasmuch as two frisky outer movements enfold a central set of variations, but the comparison ends there. Despite colorful scoring and no shortage of pianistic virtuosity, the thematic material lacks the distinction of the composer’s elder colleague, and the treatment of form comes across as comparatively episodic. Both this and the 12-minute Fourth Concerto for piano and strings (and snare drum in the finale) are predictably well played by Kathryn Stott, and enthusiastically conducted, but the similarly derivative, previously released Second Concerto offers more interesting music.
The Second Symphony dates from the mid-1930s, when the first Socialist Realist purges were getting under way (with the attacks on Shostakovich), but Kabalevsky never was in any danger there. This isn’t a criticism: writing tuneful and accessible music is no crime, as Shostakovich would later prove (or Copland in his popular ballets). What matters is the quality of the result, and once again others do it better. Still, this pithy three-movement piece, nominally based in C minor but offering little by way of sadness–let alone tragedy or any kind of expressive depth–offers a scant 25 minutes of diverting orchestral busy-ness. Well played, well recorded, but just not all that compelling, this music can be recommended to Kabalevskians (if there are any) and Russian music completists.
