Moussorgsky - Salammbo

[rich...@gmail.com]

I have had the ocassion to do a lot of reading on MM, and have gained
more more rouned (I hope) understanding of what a really complex guy
he was - always kind of portrayed as a Dostoevskian force of nature
and a drunk, and not much more, Taruskin in particular, and Garpiov,
have been very enlightening in terms of his artistic path, which in
many ways was as inner-directed, and sophisticated, as any composer I
can think of; in fact, I can't quite think of a ready comparison,
excerpt possibly Berg, and I am not so sure that the situations are
really similar. Perhaps thinking of him in the same mental breath as
Leonardo might not be so misleading.

In any event, he left a trail of opera projects and unfinished operas
which one wishes on had complete and which are generally not available
in performance. One, The Marriage, just barely exists as to Act I, and
I have never heard it, although I recently checked out the score. It
is comic and goes along the Dargomeshy (sp) path of being entirely
true to word setting, as opposed to melody. The other (or an other) is
Salammbo, based on the Flaubert (who seemed to attract any number of
composers to their doom), and I have just found on You Tube a recent
posting of the fragments, under Rostropovich, from a dress rehearsal,
which starts here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg3ZIGR3yFY

I can't believe you won't love the music, or recognize who essentially
different it is than Boris or the Kovanschina. The one detriment is
that you have to search a bit for some of the sequential episodes, but
that's easy to do on You Tube, and well worth it.

Enjoy... a very special treat, I think.

[Tassilo]

The incomplete Salammbô is filled with spectacular music redolent of
the cruel and sensuous Middle East of Flaubert's novel, and you can
find a recording of all of it. Salammbô was first orchestrated in the
late 1970's by one Zoltán Peskó, who had been a composition student of
Luigi Nono's: Nono was the same kind of rabid admirer of Mussorgsky’s
music as Debussy, Ravel, and Boulez, and Nono suggested the project to
Peskó. Peskó gave the world première of the incomplete Salammbô on
the RAI in 1980, and a recording of the broadcast was issued, first on
LP on CBS records, and then on CD in Europe by Warner Fonit:

Mussorgsky: Salammbô (orchestrated Zoltán Peskó)
Salammbô: Ludmila Shemchuk
Mathô: Georgi Seleznev
Orchestra sinfonica e coro della RAI di Milano
Zoltán Peskó
Recorded 1980
Warner Fonit C927 43404-2, (P) 2002

-david gable

[gggg gggg]

(Youtube upload):

Olga Borodina: Salammbô