DG’s Mussorgsky “Panorama” scores with a hat-trick of fine performances, beginning with Giulini’s grandly severe Chicago recording of Ravel’s orchestration of “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Very well recorded, with typically excellent brass playing, this version contrasts very well with Richter’s deservedly legendary Sofia recital offering of the original piano score. Incidental imperfections (that famous clinker at the very opening), as well as some bronchial audience members, matter not a whit. Everything in this performance “works,” not least those colossal closing pages where Richter’s supernatural sense of timing for once builds the work to a genuinely satisfying climax. Last among the major offerings, we get some highlights from Karajan’s wonderful complete Boris Godunov. The smaller pieces, including Vishnevskaya and Markevitch’s famous Six Songs and Fassbaender’s “Songs and Dances of Death” in their Shostakovich orchestration, sound equally distinguished.
This perfectly programmed survey, in short, contains everything a beginner will ever need, but I can’t recommend it to that audience. Why? No texts and translations for the songs or opera excerpts. Now I ask you, what is the point of putting together a series ostensibly for beginners that contains an hour of yelling and screaming in Russian without a single clue as to what all the yelling and screaming is about? Artistically this is a “10”, but I just can’t reward a company for taking the cheap way out and cheating precisely the audience it purports to serve.
