Gramophone (UK)
Recommended albums
Now into his second season as Chief Conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, this looks to be Minsk-born Dmitry Matvienko’s first high-profile album and it proves an auspicious one.

Arguably his greatest such work, Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony (1947) has only latterly come its own recording-wise as in the concert hall, with the options now considerable. Not easy to make cohere, the opening Allegro moderato unfolds persuasively; its speculative and soulful main themes finely drawn, then its impulsive codetta more than usually well-integrated into a stealthy development whose baleful climax does not pre-empt its coda’s ominous import. If the central Largo seems less convincing, this is less to do with its long-term evolution than a tendency to rein in the harmonic plangency of music whose strenuous eloquence needs to be fought for. Not so the final Vivace, its animated refrain affording purposeful contrast with its more equivocal episodes then a hushed intensity prior to that fateful denouement, Prokofiev surely intent on acknowledging catastrophes past vis-à-vis potentially greater ones to come.

Among recent comparisons, Matvienko can more than hold his own against Kirill Karabits’s streamlined energy, Vasily Petrenko’s not un-insightful aloofness and the cumulative impact of Gianandrea Noseda’s recording, which he otherwise most resembles. His including Silvestrov’s Silent Music (2002) as an emotional ‘touch down’ is not at all inappropriate, though framing the principal work with that composer’s Autumn Serenade and Hymn 2001 might have made the point even more effectively, while the piece itself is likely best encountered in the context of the Kyiv Virtuosi’s persuasive Silvestrov miscellany. Christina Blangstrup Dahl’s detailed and thoughtful booklet note demurs over what this symphony actually means, but the fact of Prokofiev’s baring his soul more explicitly here than elsewhere is ultimately what matters. Richard Whitehouse, July issue

Prokofiev – selected comparisons:
Bournemouth SO, Karabits Onyx ONYX4153 (12/15)
Oslo PO, Petrenko LAWO LWC1215 (8/21)
LSO, Noseda LSO Live LSO0390 (6/25)

Silvestrov – comparative version: Kyiv Virtuosi, Yablonsky Naxos 8 573598