So in spending way too much time with Sleeping Beauty the last few days, there are three great recent complete Sleeping Beautys (ies) from the last ten years that are as good and perhaps even better than any version that came before. Two of which are by underrated historic conductors.
One is V. Jurowski, which is very 20th century and looks forward to Stravinsky, like Igor Markevitch in the symphonies. There is an unmistakable deficiency of romantic fantasy, but there is no doubt in this recording of Tchaikovsky's compositional genius. Every bar has enormous thought, insight and shape. Perhaps a little too much, but anybody who cares about this work has to hear this.The harmonies and lines are so clear that you hear the influence of Tristan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJLltSNZ-2M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJLltSNZ-2M
Another is Neeme Jarvi's, which is maybe the most exciting version set down (along with Fedotov). Fedotov, possessing the Leningrad Philharmonic, plays it the way Mravinsky might have, with huge force that is surprising for such a well-known ballet conductor. Jarvi plays it in an extremely romantic way, almost as light music, it sounds like all that Rimsky-Korsakov he's recorded so much of and so well. He sounds like Gergiev with much better playing, better sound, and using orchestral detail and power to make the points Gergiev made through speed and rubato. But Jarvi is still more bizarre, the way he keeps doubling and halving the tempo in the Act II finale is Golovanov worthy.
But in spending particular time with Vassily Sinaisky the last few days, I'm coming around to the idea that his may be the best of all the recordings, the one which views Tchaikovsky on his own terms. As a complete score, I don't know how it couldn't still be Fedotov, who gave his whole long career to ballet - though Rozhdestvensky is a genius and no other Tchaikovsky conductor has his sixth sense for what music expresses, I doubt even Tchaikovsky could have known the score as well as Fedotov did. But good god Sinaisky is amazing. In listening over the last few days, even if it's jarringly snipped all over the place, I think this must get us closer to the actual world of Tchaikovsky than any other recording I've ever heard. You hear the influences of Mozart and Schumann, obviously of ballets like Gieselle and Coppelia, the influenes of Russian folk and military music, as well as the incredible innovations that precede Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Not to mention the actual Tchaikovsky personality - half Tolstoy portraying the aristocracy, half Dostoevsky portraying the tortured Russian soul. It's that sublime thing that you know when you hear - the concentration gets so intense that pulse goes up and breathing becomes thinner. This is Tchaikovsky. This is music.
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