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The Mighty Five and six pieces
Romantic music without bathos
Saturday, January 27, 2007
By Paul M. Somers

Russian Romantics — Week Two
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi (conductor), Jie Chen (piano). “Russia’s Mighty Five.” Mussorgsky: “Great Gate of Kiev” from Pictures at an Exhibition; Cui: Nocturne in F-sharp minor; Balakirev: Islamy. Balakirev: Islamy; Mussorgsky: A Night on Bald Mountain; Borodin: “Polovtzian Dances” from Prince Igor. Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, op. 35. Prudential Hall, NJPAC, Newark.

Okay, it’s time to honest. Have you actually ever heard any music by César Cui? If your honest response is that you never even heard of him — a common response among the members of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s audience for the second week of its Russian Romantics Festival — then this concert was for you.

Cui was, of course, the “fifth” of the Russian “Mighty Packet”, as my Russian daughter-in-law translates the phrase. We more usually call them the “Mighty Five” or, closer to the original, the “Mighty Handful.” Pianist Jie Chen, who opened the innovative two-intermission concert with a mini recital, played his Nocturne in F-sharp minor, a Chopin-esque and very lovely piece. Though we were told that much of Cui’s music is of the sentimental salon variety, this piece was far from that description. Ms. Chen demonstrated clearly that the Nocturne belongs in the repertoire of many pianists, a work well worth learning.

Somewhat better-known among the five composers is Mili Balakirev. Though he had castigated Tchaikovsky early on, he later became a friendly critic of the most famous Russian of them all, always urging him on to greater nationalism. But Tchaikovsky was too cosmopolitan a person, too interested in using German forms while using a Russian language, to wholly embrace nationalism.

Balakirev himself, however, wrote very eloquently in a Russian style, producing a fairly nationalist symphony and his most famous work of all, Islamy for solo piano. It proved to be one difficult piece to execute, filled with technical demands often in the service of evoking characteristic folk dances. Chen took it to the proverbial bank! At the conclusion an audible “Wow!” was heard from the audience. And for good reason; it was a stunning piece played to the hilt.

When the orchestral portion of the concert began, the first piece was Liapounov’s orchestration of Islamy. Though of course quite different because of the vastly larger color spectrum, it retained its “Wow!” factor intact. What an orchestral showpiece it proved to be!

Chen opened the concert with one of the best-known “Mighty Five” pieces: Modeste Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate of Kiev” from Pictures at an Exhibition. Since most of the time we hear it as orchestrated by Ravel, it was for some a new experience to hear it in the original version as a piano solo. Chen, who appears quite petite, let loose a performance filled with sheer power, sometimes lifting herself off the piano seat. Hers was a Great Gate far more grand than whatever the original Hartmann picture may have shown.

Those who remember Disney’s Fantasia will remember the demonic Night on Bald Mountain as one of Disney’s scarier creations. It hardly needed the pictures what with Mussorgsky’s score, especially as “colorized” by Rimsky-Korsakov. The NJSO had it nailed.

For those who know the Broadway musical Kismet, Alexander Borodin’s music is quite familiar, since the show uses only his melodies. But here we got to hear the real thing: the most popular of Borodin’s works, the “Polovtsian Dances” from his incomplete opera Prince Igor. Järvi provided a vigorous reading, never flagging in even the more lyrical passages. The lack of chorus was a minor detail, for the vivid excitement and broad scope of the performance allowed the mind’s eye to see a Cecil B. DeMille cast of thousands far better than any opera chorus.

The most famous of all the Mighty Five compositions is surely Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. As with the earlier pportions of the concert, the playing was lushly inflected and filled with all the virtues which now inhabit Järvi’s NJSO. As it should be, it was a showcase for concertmaster Eric Wyrick. While some may take a more passionate and rhapsodic view of the music, his more restrained performance kept the cinematic score within the realm of good taste. The music is, after all, exotic enough without having a concertmaster go over the top into bathos.