Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor opus 23
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D major opus 50
"The Comedians", suite for small orchestra opus 26
Colas Breugnon, opera (Overture) opus 24

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Vassily Sinaisky (conductor)
Kathryn Stott (piano)

Chandos CHAN 10052

Recorded on 21, 24-25 June 2002 in BBC Studio 7, Manchester

Fine playing and recording shows the Russian’s modest talents in the best light

Kabalevsky’s piano concertos present easy targets for critical demolition, such is their ease of assimilation. And uncritical hyperbole is not a helpful corrective; reviewing the listed comparison on Olympia, Bryce Morrison was rightly peeved by the over-sell of the booklet note. Still, that disc, for all the commanding pianism on display, is sonically challenged, and no one, surely, would begrudge Kabalevsky’s modest but genuine talents the fine playing and luxurious recording lavished on them in this new Chandos issue.

In the Second Concerto – a close contemporary of Khachaturian’s sole Piano Concerto from the mid-1930s, but a good deal less inflated – Kathryn Stott takes a far gentler approach than Nikolai Petrov, and the recorded balance sets her in a more realistic perspective. This is all to the good, because it enables her to tease out subtleties of character that the imperious Russian rather glosses over, and it also helps to disguise somewhat Kabalevsky’s huge debt to Prokofiev. Rather than steam-rollering on, Stott allows space for wit and gracious lyricism to register, and where necessary her accompanying textures are mellow and fine-graded.

She brings similar virtues to the Third Concerto, which, however, can hardly help but sound rather small beer by comparison. This ‘Youth’ Concerto is brilliantly designed for aspiring pianists whose fingers are perhaps more highly developed than their musicianship; as Eric Roseberry’s excellent notes remind us, it was actually premičred by the 17-year-old Ashkenazy. Like Shostakovich’s Second Concerto, which it predates by four years, there are some splendid in-jokes, such as the Emperor-style passagework in the finale, followed by a comically inflated ‘big tune’ (at least I hope it wasn’t intended seriously).

The catchy Overture to Colas Breugnon – in an honourable line from Glinka’s Ruslan to Shostakovich’s Festive Overture – opens the disc with a swing, and the two concertos are separated by the pleasantly brainless Suite from The Comedians: high-class light music from the same stable as Shostakovich’s ballet-scores. Kabalevsky was always happy to graze where others had planted. But such is the class of the BBC Philharmonic’s playing for their principal guest conductor that by the end of the disc I felt that I had at least been shown facets of his art that I had never before appreciated.

David Fanning
Gramophone, July 2003

Outside the USSR Kabalevsky’s music has met with condemnation or condescension. He has a ready knack for melodies and rhythms of instant catchy appeal. No wonder a generation or three of music critics have chosen to slate his stuff. Those who choose to mix politics and music also find time for a swipe that mixes outrage at dogma with judgement on musical merit. I am not making any claims to greatness or depth for this music but I will take a little time to tell you about its many appealing qualities. If we can listen to Coates, Gillis, Rutter and Respighi and also accept the lighter works of Tchaikovsky, Walton, Barber, Bax, Shostakovich and Arnold, why is it that we have such difficulty with Kabalevsky? It is not, horror of horrors, that he wrote only music that is shallow but captivating. For example there are satisfying ambiguities and challenging depths in both his Second Cello Concerto (listen to the Shafran performance on Cello Classics CC1008 and Wallfisch on Chandos) and the Requiem (Olympia OCD290, with Symphony No. 4). I am sure that ideology has more to do with his standing than anything else.

The Overture is utterly unsubtle: blasted with colour and driven by the sort of energy that rips through Shostakovich’s Festival Overture. Colas is a sort of Soviet echo of a lost generation of overtures: Reznicek’s Donna Diana, Smetana’s Bartered Bride and Charbrier’s Espańa. The complete opera Colas Breugnon is on Olympia OCD291 conducted by Georgy Zhemchuzhin. After a pocket overture we get a pocket concerto. The piano sound is cosseted; rather warmly recorded. I would have preferred a greater clarity or coldness. The work perhaps formed a subliminal model for Shostakovich when he came to write his own great populist piano concerto (No. 2) twenty-five years later. This work is certainly fun if at times relentless; the nature of the beast. In the second movements there are troubled aspirations towards profundity but Kabalevsky returns to type for the hectic and thunderous rush of the finale. The Third Concerto (once wonderfully carried off on Supraphon by Frantisek Maxian) has a really cracking tune. The sound is not at all congested and the piece is very well orchestrated. Kabalevsky dallies with a Hispanic-accented theme but the finale with its fun-at-the-sprint returns to the first movement’s grand nostalgic theme. Glorious stuff! The suite from The Comedians is as bright as a polished Soviet star. This is circus frivolity without the macabre element you might have found if Shostakovich had taken this on. Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf is a strong presence in track 7.

Complete with good liner notes this is a fun disc - not too profound - for those prepared to loosen their strait-lacing.

Rob Barnett
MusicWeb, April 2003

The ghosts of Shostakovich and Prokofiev hang over Kabalevsky's two piano concertos, the second of which makes a far more imposing impression than the third, which was composed much later for young performers (much like Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto, which benefits from that composer's added bite and wit). If you like, say, Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, you'll love Kabelevsky's Second, as it features some great tunes, colorful orchestration, and a rousing last-movement climax that comes about as close as this composer ever gets to music of real violence. Kathryn Stott does herself proud in this music, and while we might wish for a bit more steel in her tone in the two finales, she takes on some pretty hair-raising tempos and emerges triumphantly.

Vassily Sinaisky has the floor to himself in the Colas Breugnon Overture and in The Comedians, works that require little more than liveliness and brilliance to make their best impression. They certainly get that here, aided in no small degree by excellent recorded sound (neither excessively reverberant nor unduly spot-lit, unlike some others from this source). It's good to see a major label like Chandos paying attention to this attractive music. Although Kabalevsky wasn't a major talent, he certainly was talented and his music doesn't deserve the obscurity in which it currently languishes. This disc goes a long way to making a strong case for him.

David Hurwitz
Classics Today

The slick, high-spirited, childlike character of Dmitri Kabalevsky’s music demands exuberance, but performers can place their approach anywhere between brilliance and nimbleness. Vassily Sinaisky and the BBC Philharmonic tend toward the latter approach. I miss the swagger Kabalevsky’s big tunes can sometimes evoke, and the character in some of the more pompous movements in The Comedians – the March and the Pantomime, for example – seems underdeveloped. Instead, Sinaisky offers a fetching and sparkling light-footedness, although the winds are so recessed into the sonic image that the vividness of their articulation is lost.

Kathryn Stott plays with considerable heat and brilliance in the Second Piano Concerto, and there is much to enjoy in her account of the Third as well, although here her fingery passagework and hypersensitive phrasing can seem just a bit precious. In the slow movements of both concertos Stott aims for breathtaking stillness; not everyone will feel that Kabalevsky’s music demands such intense inwardness. The composer’s own account of the Third, with Emil Gilels as soloist (Olympia), finds parody in the excessive repetition and gradual accelerando of the big tune in the slow movement. This is the sort of touch that seems more central to the fundamental nature of these works.

David Breckbill
BBC Music Magazine