チャイコフスキー:交響曲第6番「悲愴」

ゲルギエフとマリインスキーの「悲愴」、待望のCD発売!

ゲルギエフとマリインスキー管弦楽団の「悲愴」という鉄板中の鉄板アイテムが登場!とは言っても2011年10月にリリースされたブルーレイ(MAR0515)とDVD(MAR 0513)の音声のみをCD化しました。チャイコフスキーの交響曲CDといえば、ウィーン・フィルとの共演盤が知られていますが、それから10数年を経て円熟のゲルギエフが再録音に臨みました。それも手兵マリインスキー劇場管を率いているのが話題となりました。今回は通常CDで、お買い得な価格設定となっています。ゲルギエフは極めて正攻法から勝負。奇をてらったり、これ見よがしなところは少なく、あくまでも壮大かつ緊張感あふれる「悲愴」像をつくりあげています。ライヴならではの一発勝負的な潔さもある感動的名演で、同曲の指折りの名盤のひとつの登場となります。
キングインターナショナル

There are countless versions of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 ("Pathetique"), including several by conductor Valery Gergiev, who seems to keep worrying about the work. This one is a live performance from 2010 recorded in Paris, but not released until 2019 in the growing catalog of the Mariinsky Orchestra's own label. It has to be very near the top of the heap. Sometimes it has been stated that Gergiev's Tchaikovsky features fast tempos, and that's telling; in fact, this "Pathetique" is on the slow side. Gergiev takes more than 21 minutes for the opening movement, far less than Yannick Nezet-Seguin or Thomas Dausgaard or the fearsome Teodor Currentzis. The thing is, it feels fast. This is because Gergiev, quite remarkably, strikes a tone of deep anxiety right at the beginning of the work and sustains it until the final murk of despair. In so doing, he forges quite an original approach that stripes the second-movement "Allegro con grazia" of its sugar-plum-like grace and even the third movement of its martial energy. This third movement, "Allegro molto vivace," will still draw applause in Gergiev's version (although none is retained on the recording), for he broadens the tempo a bit for a slam-bang conclusion. But all this does is deepen the impact of the finale, which attempts a hard-won calm around four minutes in, and then, in steps masterfully controlled by Gergiev, falls back into the pit. The symphony is, in Gergiev's hands perhaps more than in those of any other conductor, the work of a composer who would be dead a week and a half after its premiere, and this is, in the end, a profoundly moving recording.