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Russian conductor Yuri Simonov often appears on some of the not-quite-top-line labels, as well as on some older recordings dating back to the Soviet era. Over the last couple of days, I've been on a Simonov listening binge because of one of his performances I heard on Spotify (Glazunov's Eighth Symphony). I've been listening to a lot of different performances of the Glazunov symphonies over the past couple of years, and Simonov's (which does not appear to be available on CD?) was, for me, by far the most insightful performance of the Eighth, despite the non-optimal in-concert engineering and the tonal vagaries of the Soviet orchestra (the Moscow Philharmonic) at that time - which I would guess was sometime in the 80's. The performance had a combination of accentuation, balance, and textural awareness/clarity that just sounded more "right" than the 5 or 6 other performances of this work that I've heard.It reminded me that Simonov made a series of recordings for the full-priced but short-lived Collins Classics label (which have since been reissued on a number of cheaper labels), among which were a couple of Wagner excerpts discs with the Philharmonia Orchestra. I have long considered Simonov's performance of the Parsifal Prelude to be unsurpassed! You can put your Karajans, Furtwänglers, Knappertsbusches, Klemperers up against this recording and I contend that Simonov more than holds his own, not only in terms of the qualities I mentioned before in the Glazunov, but also in more intangible qualities such as "spirituality". (And, BTW, I like some of those other conductors I listed too, but, again, Simonov IMHO belongs in their company in this work.)
Simonov was also the conductor on some of the performances in that big block of RPO recordings, which seemed to be hastily assembled, indifferently recorded, and then just dumped on the market (even though many of these later appeared on SACD for some reason).
The only time I had seen Simonov conduct until the last couple of days was in an old Bolshoi video of Rimsky-Korsakov's magnificent opera, "Sadko", where he seemed pretty business-like, although more insightful in this work than Gergiev, despite being more primitively recorded (which is saying something, because Gergiev was not that well recorded to begin with). But somewhere along the line, Simonov's conducting style must have loosened up, because when I checked his YouTube videos, I found out that this guy is a riot! Check out this performance of the Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 6:
[for some reason, this site no longer seems to allow direct embedding of YT videos - it seems to be having a problem with the "iframe" tag, so I'm putting the link here instead]
Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 6 - Simonov/MPO. . . or, going back to Glazunov - the Spanish Dance from "Raymonda" (seems to be an encore MPO performance in Korea):
[for some reason, this site no longer seems to allow direct embedding of YT videos - it seems to be having a problem with the "iframe" tag, so I'm putting the link here instead]
Glazunov Spanish Dance from "Raymonda" - Simonov/MPO. . . or, I think from the same concert, this excerpt from "Swan Lake", where he actually turns around in the middle of the performance and says something to the audience:
[for some reason, this site no longer seems to allow direct embedding of YT videos - it seems to be having a problem with the "iframe" tag, so I'm putting the link here instead]
Tchaikovsky Hungarian Dance from "Swan Lake" - Simonov/MPOI just wish Simonov were better represented in the west, with the engineering he deserves (IOW, better than on his Soviet and RPO recordings). The Collins recordings, which, for plain old CD's, are well recorded IMHO, also include some great Tchaikovsky too (Little Russian, Manfred, and Francesca da Rimini), as well as a Strauss Heldenleben (haven't heard the Strauss however).
Edits: 08/19/12Follow Ups:
Did you come accross Seta Tanyel's performance of Scharwenka's Piano Concerto #1 with Simonov and the Philharmonia on Collins? Recorded in London in 1991. Different hall and engineers than on the Wagner disc. Lovely recording/performance and an alternative to Wild's recording I think. FWIW, I thought the sonics on the Wagner recording were not up to the performance's level especially compared to what the same forces did on the Scharwenka disc. It reminds me of what many folks complain about on early digital recordings. I'll stick with Bruno Walter's Columbia recordings. :-)
Yes - I did have that recording, although I didn't keep it. My problem with it was Tanayel's own playing. My recollection is that the engineering was excellent (as you say), but her playing just didn't seem as finished as Wild's, nor did it seem to generate the same kind of excitement. BTW, I'm surprised you don't think Simonov's Wagner disc was as well recorded - it always seemed to me exceptionally smooth for a digital recording (if somewhat distant), and as my own system has improved over the years, this is one recording which has seemed to improve along with it. (And that's by no means true for every recording in my collection!) When I played it the other night, it just seemed to radiate a kind of ethereal refinement. I'm not knocking Bruno Walter however. ;-)
I actually saw a live performance of the Scharwenka with a local orchestra and my friend Natasha Paremski as the soloist. (Sorry, I can't resist posting another picture of her!) I hope she'll get a chance to record that concerto soon - maybe even in hi-rez! ;-)
Well Chris, I must say you have managed to come up with a conductor who not only have I not heard of, but even one of my close friends who is a conductor has never heard any of his work! I think I may have vaguely heard the name before, but that's it. My friend I mentioned has the most extensive knowledge of anyone I know of different conductors and their recordings, but when I asked him about Simonov after reading your post, he was completely unfamiliar with his work, though he has heard the name. It was almost something of a triumph to give him a name that he couldn't discuss! Must have done all his work behind the Iron Curtain, then, with very little of it released until now??
I can understand that the Soviet ones would be obscure, but there are a few on the RPO/Tring and Collins Classics labels. The problem is that these latter recordings have been re-issued on sometimes obscure, cheap labels, so they might be well be under the radar of many listeners. That's why I made the OP (for publicity, so to speak). BTW, I listened to some more of those RPO recordings on Spotify yesterday, and they're not as indifferently recorded as I had remembered and suggested in my OP. There's a discography on Simonov's web site:
I have Simonov's RPO recording (issued on SACD) of the Gorecki Symphony No. 3. It's an excellent performance with a bigger string section and a more substantial soprano than the Zinman recording that used to be a bestseller. The sound quality is fine, although I have no idea if it was actually recorded in multichannel.
Another one was the Mahler 5, conducted by Frank Shipway (although, come to think of it, that's one I have on SACD, rather than CD). However, most of them did sound very multi-miked to me. I've often found that multi-channel mitigates multi-miking somewhat - which is where SACD could come in handy. I don't know the Gorecki Third at all, despite the Zinman recording's bestseller status - glad to hear you liked the Simonov/RPO too. I really do think Simonov is a better conductor than most listeners know.
Edits: 08/20/12
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