Masquerade Suite and The Comedians
Classical album by Aram Khachaturian and Dmitry Kabelevsky
Released 1964 [Classic Records reissue 1994]
Recorded 1958
Genre Classical
Length 32:29
Label RCA Living Stereo/Classic Records
Producers Michael Hobson, Ying Tan
This Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite and Kabelevsky - The Comedians is part of a Classic Records Deluxe 1S Edition Box Set of RCA Living Stereo "Shaded Dog" releases.
This is a BIG one folks, as most of you probably know already. It is not easy to find copies of this album with excellent sound and fairly quiet surfaces on both sides, and if you don't believe me than I encourage you to try. The violin is so sweet and full of rosiny texture here. The whole string section is full of Living Stereo magic. The soundstage is wide and deep, the overall sound rich and warm. The midrange is nothing short of magical.
This is the kind of Golden Age recording that makes us audiophiles lose it. It's one of the few legitimate reasons to take the TAS Super Disc List seriously in the first place. HP put records like this on the audiophile map and we owe him a debt of gratitude for having done so. Our musical lives are remarkably richer for it.
This recording is so natural it's FREAKISH. You get swept up in the music completely because the sound allows you to forget it's even a recording at all. All the normal adjectives apply; I won't bother to repeat them here. If I ever make a list of the greatest recordings of all time, as Harry does with his "Best of the Bunch" dozen, you can bet that this record will be on it.
Review by customer on amazon:
This CD speaks more than any amount of words as to the tragic loss music suffered over the early death of conductor, Kiril Kondrashin. "The Masquerade Suite" and "The Comedians" in particular have incredible style and sweep. These pieces which have been for so long relegated to the status of pops concerts level become in Kondrashin's hands the decided masterpieces of colorful writing and wonderful orchestration that they actually are. I must go so far as to say that these interpretations are definitive. We like to think of all the technical advances we have made in the last decades, but the sonics of the original analog tapes make these pieces sound like they were recorded yesterday rather than 40 years ago. There is not a trace of compression or distortion. Volumes on a good stereo system can be put to earthquake level. The final movement of the Kabelevsky is a speaker buster with Kabelevsky's ample use of kettle drums for the grand finish. On the other side of the coin, there is Oscar Shumsky's incomparable violin playing in "The Masquerade Suite" with its heartfelt second movement's large violin solo. This is a "must-have" CD. We have absolutely magnificent performances of two masterpieces of orchestration from the mid-twentieth century Russian school.
The Classic Records Deluxe 1S Edition Box Set includes:
LSC1806 Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra (Reiner, CSO)
LSC1900 Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique (Munch, BSO)
LSC2398 Kabalevsky - The Comedians (Kondrashin, RCAVO)
LSC2456 Lalo - Symphony Espagnole (Szeryng, Hendl, CSO)
LSC1934 Bartok - Concerto For Orchestra (Reiner, CSO)
LSC2500 Strauss - Waltzes (Reiner, CSO)
LSC2423 Festival (Reiner, CSO)
LSC2541 Liszt - Todtentanz & Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No. 1 (Janis, Reiner, CSO)
LSC2234 Saint-Saens - Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rubinstein, Wallenstein, SOA)
LSC2471 Rhapsodies (Stokowski, RCAVO)
LP track listing
Side One
Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite
1. "Waltz" - 4:26
2. "Nocturne" - 3:47
3. "Mazurka" - 2:38
4. "Romance" - 3:42
5. "Galop" - 2:58
Side Two
6. "Kabelevsky - The Comedians, Op. 26" - 14:58
Prologue
Comedians' Galop
March
Waltz
Pantomime
Intermezzo
Little Lyrical Scene
Gavotte
Scherzo
Epilogue
Personnel
* RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra/Kiril Kondrashin, Conductor
* Oscar Shumsky - violin solo
