“Abravanel is very good in this music – crackling with energy tempered with tender ways with the great melodies. Antar is a neglected prize among Rimsky’s works ranking with Sheherazade. … Caucasian Sketches have ‘These You Have Loved’ status, with ‘Procession of the Sardar’ establishing the idiom for a thousand Hollywood triumphal and barbarous marches. … The Glière is a fun piece that stamps emphatically and clearly influenced by Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures from an Exhibition’. As an inexpensive single disc collection of less obvious Russian repertoire this is difficult to top. I recommend it strongly.”
– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International)
Russian composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Reinhold Glière were masters of conveying Russian national imagery in orchestral sound, as was twentieth century Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, whose music for the ballet Gayne achieved enormous popularity in the twentieth century. “Russian Legends & Dances” brings together selections from the acclaimed Vanguard Classics catalogue, conducted by two of the mid-twentieth century’s leading conductors: Maurice Abravanel, who built the Utah Symphony into a powerhouse orchestra with an international profile, and French-American conductor Vladimir Golschmann, an unsung champion of contemporary music whose substantial discography includes many recordings made with orchestras in Vienna and New York for Vanguard Classics..
