GREAT RECORDINGS phase 11

MUSSORGSKY: SONGS AND DANCES OF DEATH (orch. Shostakovich)
Songs & opera arias by Mussorgsky Rimsky-Korsakov & Tchaikovsky
Galina Vishnevskaya
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Mistislav Rostropovich

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'In this, the first ever recording of the Songs and Dances of Death in Shostakovich's orchestration, Vishnevskaya's art is quite exceptionally imaginative and magnetic. In vividness and subtlety she achieves a special kind of greatness.' (Gramophone)

Awards: ECHO Deutscher Schallplatten Preis, Germany; Gramophone, UK; Diapason d'Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique & Timbre de Platine d'Opéra International, France.

During the late 1970s, the great Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, accompanied by her husband Mstislav Rostropovich, recorded for EMI five LPs of Russian vocal music by Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, This single CD presents one of those LPs complete (the orchestral songs and arias) and songs with piano accompaniment taken from three of the other LPs.

A group of Mussorgsky's songs with piano accompaniment act as a prelude to the major work in the programme: the first ever recording of Shostakovich's 1962 orchestration of Mussorgsky's powerful Songs and Dances of Death.

Well-known songs by Rimsky-Korsakov precede arias from two of his operas: Sadko and The Tsar's Bride, and five famous songs by Tchaikovsky follow an extract from the composer's incidental music to Ostrovsky's play The Snow Maiden.