Walter Meyer wrote and asked:

>Among my Berkshire finds was the following "filler" on a CD containing
>Gliere's Second Symphony.  It was a Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and
>orchestra.  ...
>
>Does anybody else reading this know the work?

Joan Sutherland recorded this work in the LP days coupled with his harp
concerto and 3 Russian songs including the popular Grechaninov [sic -
modern spelling] lullaby - LON 26110.  Peter G. Davis, reviewing the
release in 1969 High Fidelity, calls it "high class Kitsch" and uses the
following adjectives: harp concerto - innocuous; coluratura concerto -
witless.  These are not used pejoratively but to highlight the irony of
their appearance at the height of Stalinist suppression.  "...both works
breathe the passe' Gallic elegance of a Czarist court.  There is not a note
of nationalistic tub-thumping..."

As far as I can ascertain, the Sutherland version has never appeared on
CD; at least it is not listed on the June 1998 Gamofile CD-ROM.

Regards, again

Bill Karzas                     [log in to unmask]