Wolfgang Sawallisch - Kabalevsky: Comedians Suite (1991)

You might not expect Wolfgang Sawallisch to be an adept interpreter of the Russian repertoire. But he made a beautiful record of the Tchaikovsky 5th in Amsterdam in the early 1960's. The present collection is superb. Kabalevsky's Suite from The Comedians is full of wit and sparkle. Rimsky-Korsakov's Cappricio Espagnole receives a sturdy, well paced reading, with a lot of panache. Glinka's Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla goes a little more slowly than usualy, as Sawallisch brings out subtleties that some conductors ignore. Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia is meltingly beautiful. And the Rimsky-Korsakov version of Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain proceeds very steadily, eventually building up a full head of steam. Throughout, the Bavarian State Orchestra, Munich's opera orchestra that had a long relationship with Sawallisch, plays crisply and tenderly, and the sound engineering is quite good. I was tempted to buy this CD by a telecast of Sawallisch conducting the Philadelphia in a Berlioz Overture, and his take on Russians, both Romantic and otherwise, is just as persuasive.