Kees Bakels and the unusually remote Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra have already made a major contribution to the not-recorded-often-enough orchestral literature of Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov in their BIS rendering of his Piano Concerto featuring the redoubtable Noriko Ogawa in the solo part. This follow-up, Rimsky-Korsakov: The Snow Maiden, manages to bring together some of more of Rimsky-Korsakov's great, and some not-so-great, achievements in orchestration while deftly sidestepping the 800-pound gorilla ...
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Kees Bakels and the unusually remote Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra have already made a major contribution to the not-recorded-often-enough orchestral literature of Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov in their BIS rendering of his Piano Concerto featuring the redoubtable Noriko Ogawa in the solo part. This follow-up, Rimsky-Korsakov: The Snow Maiden, manages to bring together some of more of Rimsky-Korsakov's great, and some not-so-great, achievements in orchestration while deftly sidestepping the 800-pound gorilla in his bed, Scheherazade, which they have already recorded. While the results are acceptable in some respects, they are not as stunning as in previous instances. Bakels and the Malaysian are not wholly to blame for it; Rimsky-Korsakov's Pan Voyevoda Suite is the weakest of his large orchestral works and was mainly a case of Rimsky-Korsakov trying to make the best of a bad situation, to salvage the best music from an opera that turned out to be a dud. While the Pan Voyevoda Suite comes...
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