Borodin and Tchaikovsky by Mitropoulos

Cover design by Karl Kezer

Dimitri Mitropoulos, like his Minneapolis predecessor Eugene Ormandy, never disappoints in performances of Russian music.  (My first exposure to Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, almost 40 years ago, was through a blazing Mitropoulos reading on a Columbia 78 set - and oh, how I wish I still had it!)  Here is an LP coupling two Russian masterpieces.  The Borodin Second Symphony was a specialty of Mitropoulos, but the CD reissue companies invariably have tapped his 1941 Minneapolis performance for release, never this New York version which, I believe, deserves attention as well.  The Tchaikovsky First Suite is a rarity as well, and this is only the second recording of it (after Walter Goehr's for Concert Hall, which can be heard here).  Unfortunately the third movement (Intermezzo) is omitted, presumably in the interest of getting the Suite on one side.  What remains is delightful, particularly its final galumphing Gavotte which surely influenced Prokofiev when he came to write his own Gavotte for his "Classical Symphony."

Borodin: Symphony No. 2 in B Minor

Recorded November 2, 1953

and

Tchaikovsky: Suite No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 43

Recorded October 18 and November 17, 1954

Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos

Columbia Masterworks ML-4966, one LP record

Link (FLAC files, 152.15 MB)

Link (MP3 files, 94.15 MB)