Octo_Russ

Prokofiev - Symphony 6 [Rostropovich/ Orchestre National De France]

These Elatus series of discs are a budget series from the Warner Classics archive, this disc was originally released on Teldec i believe, this is one of the better issues, cleverly coupling together Prokofiev's last two Symphonies, they're not heard that greatly, and especially the Sixth is well worth getting to know, it's on a par with the Fifth.

Mstislav Rostropovich passed away 4 years ago, quite possibly the greatest ever Cellist, towards the end of his life he conducted more, mainly producing Russian works of his homeland, he was born in 1927, and died not long after his 80th birthday, the front cover is no great shakes, looks like some industrial coupling.

This was a great experience listening to this Symphony again, i felt restless, so i went out for a walk armed with this disc on a portable, it's now deep autumn, and walking through the park with a carpet of leaves, plus it's getting colder, even though it's nothing to do with the music, it's good to breathe fresh air and have some sort of visual to go along with it, i grew to love this Symphony by listening to Andre Previn's interpretation of it, which i listened to six months ago [24th April 2011], i'm still baffled why it isn't more popular, i really enjoyed the first movement, lovely deep brass, Prokofiev seems to use a basic theme, and then make a whole load of loose variations on it, though there's no formal structure of such, it's cast in three movements, which seems a novelty, Rostropovich seems to propel the Symphony along nicely, and yet compared to others he seems quite slow, here's some timings in minutes, 

Ashkenazy = 38

Previn = 42

Rostropovich = 45

Rostropovich is 20% slower than Ashkenazy!, the Symphony is in E Flat Minor, but the last movement turns to the happier E Flat Major, and it's this movement i liked the best, full of quirky and mischievous humour, and of course i notice that the Symphony contains a piano, to great effect, the woodwind / flutes make a wonderful sweet serenade of the main tune [1:43-2:16], nicely in the higher registers, underpinned by chugging strings, and muted brass / high violins follow suite [2:18-2:47], the movement gets quirkier by the minute, Prokofiev bringing in a nice circus of instruments / effects one after another, i like the way that he makes the movement explode in a fortissimo passage of the main tune [7:06+], and then near the end the whole thing comes to an bassoon halt, and a sad and lonesome tune appears on i believe the oboe or cor anglais [9:16-10:40], reminiscing of earlier times in the Symphony, very effective and evocative, then he brings about one of these double crescendos, starting on the lower woodwind and tremulous strings [10:46+], and the ugly brass blaze away twice [11:11 & 11:28], something Shostakovich would have done, they're like something brought in from elsewhere, a strange ending to a Symphony, the very ending a cacophony of a build up, the happiness has gone, and it's a brutal ending [11:46-12:21], that finishes in a very abrupt crescendo, and yet it's a wonderful stroke of genius, i really love it.

Here's the last movement of the Sixth Symphony being conducted by Gustavo Ubeda on YouTube.