Evgeny Mravinsky, Vol. 4

Mravinsky relentlessly honed the quality of the individual musicians and of the orchestra as a whole. He rehearsed tirelessly and remorselessly with the individual sections of the orchestra, kicking out anyone who did not meet his expectations and replacing him with the best. In the concert hall, he was able to apply in technically perfect and precise manner his extremely finely graduated dynamic range, immense palette of tone colors and volcanic outbursts. He never gesticulated wildly and often did not even use a baton. “His” Philharmonic Orchestra could measure itself with the best in the world. Mravinsky recorded in studios from 1938 to 1961. He was, in the words of music commentator Norman Lebrecht, “the most capable of all Soviet conductors.” This release is the fourth volume in Profil’s exploration of Mravinsky’s recordings, and features works by Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Khachaturian, and more.