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Klang der Welt: Russia - Deutsche Oper Berlin

Klang der Welt: Russia - Deutsche Oper Berlin

New Classical Adventure  60175

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical


Borodin: String Quartet No. 2 in D major, Rimsky-Korsakov: Quintet in B flat major for Piano, Flute, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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Review by Adrian Quanjer - September 27, 2011

This disk has not attracted much interest and I must admit that it had also escaped my attention. Difficult to find a review, here or elsewhere, with an exception of ARKIVMUSIC, giving it only a short comment. Now that I have listened to it, I wonder why it went largely unnoticed.

I bought it for Rimsky-Korsakov’s not too often played piano quintet. It is a delicious piece of music. It is full of humour and it leaves you with a smile and in a kind of optimistic mood. Its formal start was not brilliant.

This quintet for piano and wind instruments was one of the two (the other being a sextet for strings) pieces submitted by Rimsky-Korsakov for a prize contest of the Russian Musical Society. It failed to attract the attention of the jury! Unjustly so: Its first public performance thereafter was a great success. The music has an immediate appeal with some catching Russian melodies, most notably in the third (slow) movement. It does not pretend to be more than it is: Music for pleasure.

The players are all drawn from the Berlin opera orchestra and it is clear that this Kammer Ensemble Classic der Deutsche Oper Berlin (consisting of a small core complement with add-ons as needed) plays regularly together, participating in national as well as international music festivals. Enjoy.

The real surprise, though, was the Borodin quartet, here played by the Wolf Quartett. Who? Never heard of. The liner notes are not as complete as one would wish. Google did not offer many clues either. It is not the Vienna Hugo Wolf Quartett. So, who are they? The first violinist, Reinhold Wolf, being, so it seems, its name giver, is one of the leaders of the Berlin opera orchestra. The other members are, too, on this orchestra’s pay roll. All first or second desk players.

It may be worthwhile to note that this opera orchestra is not a run of the mill opera orchestra. Looking at the list of conductors, many noteworthy names pop up like Donald Runnicles, its present Generalmusikdirektor, Walter, Fricsay, Maazel, Sinopoli (with fatal result) and Thielemann amongst a hefty list of past Chief Conductors. One might assume, therefore, that the orchestra’s complement is a reflection of such distinction. And, ad-hoc quartet or not, judged by the playing of the Wolf Quartett, I can confirm: These are excellent players.

But how do they fare as far as Borodin’s second string quartet is concerned? I ran a blind test at home with the Borodin Quartet (1978, Chant du Monde) and the Prazak (2000, Praga Digitals, re-edited in SACD in 2011). The short of it being that The Borodin are still the masters, be it that the intro in the fourth movement was found to be a bit too mannered, that Wolf cs. could very well hold their own in comparison to Mikhail Kopelman and his companions, playing with hardly any vibrato, forcefully where needed, and presenting the right degree of ‘Leidenschaft’ in the slow movement, and that the Prazak, good though they were, did not really convince in their ‘leidenschaft’ and played the Scherzo a trifle too routinely.

Given the fact that the Praga Digitals distributors (Harmonia Mundi) have cheated as far as the ‘dsd surround’ is concerned (in spite of what the notes say, this is not DSD and not Multi-Channel, and the distributors, asked whether I possibly had received a faulty copy, did not care to react!) we have here a first rate alternative for those who appreciate a better sound quality and the extra depth in the sound stage.

With a delightful Rimski-Korsakov as a welcome bonus, this is an opportunity not to be missed. The recording is clear, rich and pleasant.

Copyright © 2011 Adrian Quanjer and HRAudio.net

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Sonics (Multichannel):

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