Deryk Barker wrote:

>Lennie's DG Tchaik 6 comes from his "anything you can do, I can do (much)
>slower" phase.
>
>Neither that nor the Pletnev are fit to be mentioned in the same breath as
>Mravinsky.  There are 3 6ths by him, the 1956 mono and 1961 stereo on DG
>and a later, live one on Erato.  While there are very fine recordings by
>others, he'd be my desert island choice.

There is a fourth, 1949, recording by Mravinsky of Tchaikovsky's Sixth on
BMG Melodiya - part of two ten CD sets of Mravinsky (I don't know if they
are available separately).  All four are, in my judgement, incomparable -
the 1949 version being the most 'classical' to my ears and the last, Erato,
being the most outwardly emotionally 'shattered'.  But they all have the
balance of classicism and strong emotion that is Mravinsky's hallmark.

Incidentally I count the 20 volume set as probably the best single
value collection of any conductor.  It contains not only incomparable
Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, which is to be expected, but
some very different aspects of Mravinsky that really opened my ears.
First sensuously beautiful Debussy (Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune),
the best Schubert 8th I have ever heard (total tragedy), and my favourite
performances of two piece by Stravinsky (Agon, Apollo - very classical but
emotional), and a fast dramatic Bruckner 8th.  There are also very good
Beethoven and Brahms - but not at the same level as the very best
elsewhere.

Because few of his records were available in the West during the cold
war I had marked down Mravinsky as the best conductor of Tchaikovsky and
Shostakovich but hadn't heard anything else.  Having heard this set I
have no doubt that there was no conductor of the twentieth century, who
recorded, who was greater than Mravinsky (my other contenders, for those
who might think of finding the CDs and want to know the approach, would be
Furtwangler, Toscanini, Klemperer and Horenstein).

John Glover <[log in to unmask]>