The Vienna Philharmonic, that bastion of orchestral refinement, would seem an unlikely choice for a truly characterful performance of Mussorgsky’s irrepressible Pictures. However, Valery Gergiev leads this orchestra in a mostly convincing rendition by emphasizing the music’s darker Russian timbres rather than its French orchestration. Gergiev often moves from one painting to the next without a break, preferring to browse rather than contemplate. However he does linger and caress when the moment requires, as in his delicately shaded Old Castle. In any event, this performance really doesn’t hit its stride until Catacombs, where the Vienna brass make some surprisingly raw and coarse sounds. The percussion also play with a harder edge–the shallow rather than booming bass drum lends a certain pagan quality to the Great Gate of Kiev. This last finds Gergiev opting for a questionable if perhaps literal reading of the score, which has the bass drum playing after the beat in the slow 3/2 passage just before the close.
The live recording is well balanced if somewhat recessed, but it lacks the dynamic range of Levi’s, Muti’s, or Sinopoli’s–all of which offer fierce, and in the case of Sinopoli, triumphant competition. The classic readings of Reiner, Szell, and Ormandy, however, remain unchallenged. Of the fillers, the Khovanschina prelude is the most compelling–a beautifully atmospheric performance that reflects Gergiev’s experience with the complete opera. Night on Bare Mountain is nothing special, while the rare Gopak makes for a refreshing, brief conclusion to the program.
