Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) - "Scheherazade, Suite Tale of Tsar Saltan : Dobrowen / Philharmonia" - Import CD

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Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

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Conductors who nurtured the early Philharmonia OrchestraIsai DobrowenBritain lost many musicians in World War I, and in World War II, it isolated and protected its best young musicians in military bands (orchestras). It is not surprising that they became key members of the Philharmonia Orchestra, which Legg founded after the war with recording in mind, and the Philharmonia was an excellent orchestra from the start. At the time when the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic were still struggling to rebuild after the war, the Philharmonia was hailed as the best orchestra in the world at the time of its 1952 concert tour. From the beginning, the orchestra was the signature orchestra of EMI (Columbia, HMV), and excellent recordings are available even in the monaural era. There are many monaural recordings that have not yet been released on CD by EMI, and this means that some very valuable recordings have been released on CD. The first recording in this series is by Isai Dobrowen, a conductor well known in the Opus collection for his concerto recordings with Hubermann (OPK2025) and Neveu (OPK2064). Regarding the Philharmonia's recording repertoire in its early days, Legg limited his orchestral music to mainly concertos and accompaniment of singers.In the late 1940s, he was still able to use the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of a first-rate conductor, but he also probably felt the need to mature the ensemble. He later recalled that he only allowed a few symphonies to be recorded under a competent and promising conductor who had the ability to educate the orchestra. So the fact that Dobrowen was chosen to conduct the Philharmonia's first symphony recording speaks eloquently of what Legg expected of this conductor. The Beethoven concerto was followed by Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, recorded in June 1946. Beethoven's Fifth (never released) and Haydn's "London" followed, and two months later the famous Brahms concerto with Neveu and Chausson's Poems were recorded. The Philharmonia recording session featured Karajan in 1948, and Furtwängler and Böhm joined him the following year. The Philharmonia, which had developed from a two-man orchestra of about 50 to a full symphony orchestra, would become Legg's most important recording orchestra, replacing the Vienna Philharmonic, which was lost to Decca.The orchestra trainers who laid the groundwork for this were Galiera, Krecki, and Dobrowen. The two Rimsky-Korsakov pieces included on this CD are considered to be Dobrowen's masterpieces, along with "Boris Godunov" (recorded in July 1952), his last recording with the Philharmonia and with the Orchestre National de Radio France under the baton of Boris Kristof. The session was held at the same time as the recording of "The Emperor's Sultan". The sessions for "The Tale of the Emperor Sultan" were held at Kingsway Hall on December 6, 1952, followed by "Scheelazade" on December 17, 18, 21, and January 5, 1953, at Abbey Road Studios. The orchestra's ability to create music with a solid, powerful sound, while enhancing the stability of its solid resonance and the solo playing of the wind and string virtuosos (the violinist is probably concertmaster Manoog Parikian), which is characteristic of the early Philharmonia, is no mean feat.(From Kotaro Yamazaki - Liner notes) King International