Boris Decca crossed Iron Curtain to get

IN the 1950s Decca penetrated the Iron Curtain to record some Russian operas performed by the Belgrade Opera and 60-odd years later they stand up very well.

Decca Eloquence has re-released a mono recording of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov made in the 1950s.

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IN the mid-1950s Decca penetrated the Iron Curtain to record a series of Russian operas performed by the company of the Belgrade Opera, in what is now Serbia but was then Tito’s Yugoslavia.

They taped Borodin’s Prince Igor and Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina over 19 days in mono and stereo in a cinema in Bucharest, and the crew had to take out the seats at 11pm, set up and work through the night and then dismantle the equipment and put back the seats in the morning.

That was in February 1955 and a month later Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov was recorded in Zagreb, Croatia.

The series was released to great praise on vinyl and now they are being re-released on the Decca Eloquence budget label.

The mono double disc of Boris Godunov stands up very well.

In the title role Serbian bass Miroslav Cangalovic is excellent. He drew praise for his later performances, some critics comparing him favourably with the great Boris specialists Feodor Chaliapin and Boris Christoff. Here he sings just the one role whereas Christoff doubles as

Boris and the hermit monk Pimen on his famous EMI recordings.

MAGISTERIAL

Another standout is Slovene tenor Miroslav Brajnic in the role of the Pretender. Although he’s maybe not be the equal of Nicolai Gedda in the earlier of Christoff’s recordings, with his sweet ringing tone he comes pretty close.

Kresimir Baranovic maintains magisterial control of his forces in the Chorus and Orchestra of the National Theatre, Belgrade, and he uses the version revised and orchestrated by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Controversy still rages over whether this is better than Mussorgsky’s original score.

Interestingly Christoff recorded both, though it is the later revised version I have which is on my top 10 favourites list.

Swiss composer Frank Martin’s works feature on this historical recording.

Also recently re-released on Decca Eloquence is a cracking tribute to conductor Ernest Ansermet, founder of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Swiss composer Frank Martin.

This double disc features the Petite Symphonie Concertante, the 1945 work, which helped, established Martin’s reputation as a tonal composer who is both accessible and willing to push boundaries.

The set of his complete works include some charming chamber pieces in the Concerto for seven wind instruments and Etudes — I would love to hear the Australian Chamber Orchestra perform this last set of four short movements in various orchestral styles.

More substantial works are the violin concerto — why isn’t this heard more often? — and Martin’s wartime oratorio In terra pax. The concerto is performed by its dedicatee Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

This set is a great introduction to a much-neglected neo-classicist whom Ansermet said was one of only two contemporary composers writing anything worthwhile during the “troubled historical situation” of the 1940s and ‘50s. The other was Benjamin Britten and the Swiss conductor famously rejected Igor Stravinsky’s later work after previously championing him.

The recordings range from 1951 to 1963 so are a mixture of mono and stereo but all with Decca’s trademark superb production values.

You can get both these releases from Fish Fine Music for $14.99.