Issay Dobrowen Conducts Russian Music

The Russian conductor Issay Dobrowen (1891-1953) was active in the recording studios for the EMI labels in the postwar years until his relatively early death at age 62. He had been the chief conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Gothenburg Symphony, which he led from 1941 until his death.

On this blog, he has led the accompaniment to Solomon in their recording of Brahms' second piano concerto.

Although Dobrowen made his career primarily outside Russia, he was perhaps inevitably considered a specialist in Russian music, and it is in that repertoire that we find the materials for today's post - primarily the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, but also short works by Glinka and Tchaikovsky. The program begins with the latter selections.

Glinka and Tchaikovsky

Any conductor wanting to open a concert with a bang surely considers programming the overture to Mikhail Glinka's 1842 opera Ruslan and Ludmilla. It provides an orchestra the perfect opportunity to play catchy themes at breakneck speed. In the right hands, it is exhilarating - and that is certainly the case as Dobrowen leads the Statsradiofoniens Symfoniorkester (Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra) in a blazing reading.

The Glinka is the earliest recording in the set, dating from 1950.

Dobrowen in action

Next, the scene shifts to London and Kingsway Hall for a July 1951 date with the Philharmonia Orchestra, yielding two famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky's 1879 opera Eugene Onegin - the Waltz from Act II and Polonaise from Act III. Again, these are beautifully played and well recorded - and delightful music.

The Glinka and Tchaikovsky works were originally issued on 78; EMI did not begin to produce LPs until 1952. These transfers were cleaned up from the original issues as found on Internet Archive. 

The balance of the post is devoted to two LPs from my own collection. I've processed all works in ambient stereo, and the sound throughout is strikingly good.

Rimsky-Korsakov - Le Coq d'Or and Tsar Saltan Suites

Dobrowen returned to the Kingsway Hall in December 1952 to conduct orchestral suites extracted from two of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas - Le Coq d'Or and The Tale of Tsar Saltan, both based on Pushkin poems.

Le Coq d'Or was Rimsky's final opera. He did not live to see its 1909 premiere.

Tamara Karsavina as the Tsaritsa of Shemakha in Diaghilev's 1914 Coq d'Or production

Dobrowen conducts the musical suite that Glazunov and Steinberg produced after Rimsky's death.

The Tale of Tsar Saltan also is a late opera, dating from 1900. The suite from the opera comes from three years later, and was devised by the composer.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

In his notes, Gerald Abraham writes that Rimsky-Korsakov "possessed the power of creating a world, or (more accurately) creating music that evokes a world. Like Pushkin's, it is a world in which the matter-of-fact is fused with the fantastic, the naïve with the sophisticated, the romantic with the humorous, the beautiful with the absurd." These are well captured in the Dobrowen recordings with the Philharmonia.

From an ad in The Gramophone, October 1953

Rimsky-Korsakov - Schéhérazade 

Like the suites above, Rimsky's Schéhérazade, which dates from 1888, is an example of "orientalism." Leaving aside the term's colonialist implications, in art it manifested itself as an escape to the exotic. And what could be more exotic than the story of the ruler Shahryar, convinced that women were faithless and habitually having his wives put to death, being captivated by the nightly tales told by his latest wife, Schéhérazade, and eventually sparing her life after 1001 such stories.

The legend of Schéhérazade forms a framing device for a collection of folk-derived tales and literature from the Middle East collected over centuries. It became known as One Thousand and One Nights and eventually in English as the Arabian Nights.

Rimsky adopted the framing device and its exotic setting, and initially titled the four movements of his suite after several such tales - "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship," "The Story of the Kalendar Prince," "The Young Prince and the Young Princess," and "Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman." Paradoxically, he did not want the work to be seen as programmatic beyond the sense of being an "Oriental" adventure, and later eliminated the titles.

Well, the music is programmatic to the extent that there is an unmistakable sea-voyage quality to some of the music, and there certainly is a theme that represents Schéhérazade relating her tales. Beyond that, no program is stated nor needed for enjoyment.

Mikhail Fokine and Vera Fokina in the Schéhérazade ballet

That does not mean that others have not added such a program to the work, notably via the 1910 Mikhail Fokine-Léon Bakst production staged by the Ballets Russes, which featured such fare as a "Golden Slave" seducing one of the Shah's wives.

Rimsky's inspiration is well conveyed by the December 1952-January 1953 recording by Dobrowen and the Philharmonia, made in Abbey Road. That said, Andrew Porter in The Gramophone was unimpressed: "Dobrowen has here achieved what I should have thought to be impossible: he makes Schéhérazade, a masterpiece of vivid colour and excitement, thoroughly dull and tedious."

It's true that Dobrowen's tempi can be slow - I checked timings of the first movement, and he takes about a minute longer than some other recordings. The slower tempi don't bother me, but it does dim the excitement.

My LP transfers come from the original US Angel releases, which have English pressings. The sound, as mentioned, is excellent.