Collectors seeking a budget introduction to the orchestral music of Anatol Liadov might find this inviting, but congested sound and low-grade playing are serious deterrents. First released on Marco Polo in 1990, this collection does at least have the advantage of being fairly comprehensive. It’s a pity that Stephen Gunzenhauser’s direction of The Enchanted Lake, Liadov’s best-known work for orchestra, isn’t more sensitively done. The shimmering woodwind details sound too remote to register properly, and the acid-toned violins aren’t helped by the dry, boxy recording ambience when they carry the main themes. The fierce, full-bore brass in tutti passages in Baba-Yaga sound crude and poorly blended. Here, and in Kikimora, the transfer sounds ugly and distorted in fortissimo passages for violins and winds above the staff.
A curious omission is Liadov’s delightful orchestral transcription of his Musical Snuffbox Op. 32. This is included, however, on Dmitri Kitaenko’s Virgin CD with the Bergen Philharmonic, a program that not only duplicates most of the works on this Naxos reissue, but also features more committed and capable orchestral playing and gives highly dramatic readings of Baba-Yaga and Kikimora. Finely blended winds and incisive brass are believably balanced against pliantly agile strings in Virgin’s wide-ranging, naturally resonant production. Gunzenhauser’s Naxos offerings are never in the same category. Disappointing.
