Rimsky Korsakov - Russian Easter Festival Overture [Maazel-The Cleveland Orchestra]Well here's the Russian Easter Festival Overture again!, only two days ago was i writing about Ozawa conducting it [29th May 2010].
Here's how i got into the overture, i heard it for the first time while i was waiting in someone else's parked car for a couple of hours, with nothing else to do, i found a cassette tape, and played it [the radio did not work!], it was this overture, i immediately liked it, and played it four or five times in succession, never getting bored of it, but actually getting more excited by it, this overture still sounds fresh and vigorous as the first day i heard it anew.
Maazel is a minute slower than Ozawa, and in certain places [usually the more reflective], Maazel seems to hang around a little too long, there is however a nice bloom on the recording, so that resonant sounds come out wonderful, the deep pizzicato bass, and the timpani too.
What i loved in the Ozawa performance i loved here too, about a third of the way through there's some nice deep brass playing, and those busy frantic strings, and the timpani can't keep quiet [4:59-6:34], with a nice surge at [5:58], likewise two thirds of the way through the timpani have some nice hits [9:28-9:48], and then it explodes into brass v strings [9:48-11:48], the last part is near the end, the bells come out, especially the glockenspiel [12:59-13:48], at the very end the Overture is trying to copy the 1812, it's a lovely piece of music that should be better known.
Here's Gregory Carreno conducting this Overture on YouTube.
