D.Kabalevsky - Requiem • Symphony No.4 (conductor - D.Kabalevsky) - 1992

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D.Kabalevsky - Requiem • Symphony No.4 (conductor - D.Kabalevsky) - 1992

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Dmitri Borisovich Kabelevsky (1904-1987) is long remembered mostly as an innovative pedagogue and the one who sought to upgrade the curriculum so as to enhance music education for the youth. And like Kodaly of Hungary, Kabalevsky was something of a musical, cultural ambassador. As a composer, he wrote many pieces for children (for examples, the First Cello Concerto, Third Piano Concerto, a Violin Concerto and a song cycle "School Years"). His operas in particular were well known in Soviet Russia while about a few of his orchestral works had some currency in the West, including the Comedians, overture to Colas Breugnon, and to a lesser extent, the Second Symphony.

Like many Soviet composers (Vainberg, Shostakovich, Boiko, Myaskovsky, Khachaturian, Popov, Shaporin), Kabalevsky wrote works in response (and in this case, in commemoration) to the Great Patriotic War (World War II). His chief one is the Requiem, written in 1964 and using the text of Robert Rozhdestvensky (no relation to Gennadi Rozhdestvensky). Dedicated "to those who died in the fight against fascism", it requires huge forces (baritone, mezzo-soprano, chorus, children chorus, and a huge orchestra). Hardly a masterpiece, since inventiveness, profundity, and to a lesser extent, individuality, are on short supply, at the same time, it is hardly a lowest common-denominator, poster-art music. It is, in the final analysis, a genuine, heartfelt musical tribute, treated with obvious, unpretentious, intense commitment to the cause by Kabalevsky on the podium with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Choir of the Artistic Education Institute, and soloists Valentina Levko and Vladimir Valaitis. Olympia's remastering of the original 1964 recording is faithful and the booklet annotation is a fine read. The Russian text and the English translation should have been printed side by side, but this release, perhaps more historically important than artistic, is all the welcome, and Olympia must be thanked and praised for its initiative.

Kabalevsky's Fourth Symphony (1956), with much of the materials borrowed from his 1950 opera "The Family of Taras" (after the novel of Boris Gorbatov), has more of the serious, dramatic even mournful qualities that set it apart from the first three (save the gracefully written scherzo and the cheerful, energetic finale). The first two movements are the most striking, with the some Mussorgskian sense of darkness that fails to escape me. Kabalevsky's performance with the Leningrad Philharmonic is authoritative yet straightforward (with a typical Soviet bravado in the playing). The recording is obviously dated and somewhat raw. But the remastering is more than acceptable.