From the U.S.S.R.--A Veritable Soviet Bonanza, of Sorts

For the past few months a steady stream of Soviet recordings has been issuing forth from Universal City via MCA’s classical division, among the more quixotic unions of high art and mass entertainment.

MCA Classics has entered into an agreement with the Soviets to re-release nominally worthy material from the vaults of the state-run Melodiya label (MLD, for present CD-identifying purposes) as well as to make new recordings using American technology and even facilities to be built in the Soviet Union by MCA’s Art & Electronics affiliate (AED).

MCA would, however, seem to be jumping the gun, using the Arts & Electronics rubric to identify material recorded several years ago.

Note too that other firms, including Germany’s BMG Classics, which owns the RCA label, have announced similar aims. Who ultimately will be doing what to and with whom, and when, is not readily discernible in these times of rapidly changing allegiances and agreements.

For the present, MCA’s initial Russian release--there are 17 titles at this writing--offers a heady mix of pleasures and frustrations, of gems and dross, of novelties, and of old friends in new guises.

Musical values tend to be high, while sonically things are as variable as the current state of Soviet technology and the skills of Soviet technicians. The documentary production is, however, wretched. Annotations and cover material tend to be ineptly written and/or translated. In several instances identification of soloists and works, and who performs what, is mishandled or not handled at all.

Still, MCA can be forgiven some of its transgressions for the boon of some of the most exciting stuff yet from the West’s new darling among progressive Soviet composers, 60-year-old Sofia Gubaidulina. It’s on a splendid-sounding CD (AED-68005) that is competently annotated as well.

Gubaidulina’s 1979 duo, “In croce,” is, for the most part, quietly shattering, alternately contemplative and ecstatic. The cello groans, croons, slithers and sometimes explodes in flurries of arhythmic harmonics, against hypnotically purling, scale-like passages on the organ.

“The Seven Last Words” (1982) and “Ex expecto” (1986) are, like “In croce,” of mystical Christian inspiration, and both feature one of the composer’s favorite instruments: the bayan (accordion). But cast out thoughts of “Lady of Spain” or a Neapolitan wedding. In the hands of Gubaidulina and her soloist, Friedrich Lips, the accordion is a sophisticated, profoundly expressive instrument.

The lengthy “Seven Last Words” is scored for bayan, cello and small string orchestra, “Ex expecto” for bayan alone. The latter piece is rich with tone clusters, tense silences and oddly compelling sounds created by “using the noise of the accordion’s air button,” according to the booklet notes.

The masterful executants are Lips and cellist Vladimir Tonkha, whose biographies are included, and organist “T. Sergeeva,” about whom nary a syllable is offered.

Elsewhere, there is a dashing reading by Moscow’s Shostakovich Quartet of namesake composer’s Quartet No. 7 and, with the brilliantly high-strung collaboration of Alexei Nasedkin, a fierily propulsive Piano Quintet (MLD-32106).

This handsome sounding, 75-minute long CD, derived from material recorded in the early-’80s, further includes a performance by the Borodin Quartet (are you following?) of Shostakovich’s sombre, gripping Quartet No. 14, similar to the one in the Borodin’s glorious EMI/Angel traversal of the entire quartet canon.

In a totally different vein, MCA offers Barry Douglas’ live Moscow performance of the Brahms D-minor Concerto (MLD-32102), the one that occasioned all the shouting at the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition.

If you’ve wondered from subsequent exposure to the young Irish pianist (including RCA’s later, studio-made version of the Brahms) what the fuss is about, this recording tells all. It’s rabble-rousing, gut-thumping and brainy pianism accompanied, after a fashion, by a seemingly semi-pro orchestra whose conductor may have neglected to show up--or if he did, shouldn’t have.

In the old friends from the old country department, there are flavorful versions of Tchaikovsky’s First (MLD-32112) and Third symphonies (MLD-32100), the latter with a hair-raising “Francesca da Rimimi.” In each instance the U.S.S.R. State Symphony under Yevgeny Svetlanov projects a vibrant native richness of timbre that has become all but extinct in this age of sound-alike orchestras.

There’s also a worthwhile Prokofiev “Classical” Symphony (Svetlanov again) that is fast, fierce and Slavically heavyweight, rather than in the crisply Gallic style to which we are accustomed. Its discmate (on MLD 32108) is Prokofiev’s undervalued Seventh Symphony, with its original downbeat ending. The conductor here is the admirable Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who wisely emphasizes the simple-sounding score’s usually overlooked ominousness.

From the curiouser and curiouser file: MCA and its annotator seem unaware that their deeply committed performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony by the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Culture Orchestra under Rozhdestvensky (MLD-32115) is of the rare first version, which lacks, among other familiar pages, the composer’s best known creation, the rousing “hunting” scherzo.

There’s also a CD (MLD-32105) devoted to the hootchy-kitsch orientalia of one Sergei Lyapunov (1859-1924), zestfully done by Svetlanov & Company, on whose front and back covers one finds listed an “Eastern Symphonic Poem.” It turns out to be a quaint “Scheherazade” ripoff whose real title is “Hashish” and is so-called on the identical performance issued in England.

MCA’s Department of Listener Morality evidently feels that Americans aren’t ready for such potentially mind-altering titles--at least on those parts of the packaging that can be read in the store. “Hashish”--the word is there. But only in the notes, which you can’t see until after purchasing the CD, removing its outer wrapping and opening the box.