A coupling of Rachmaninov's Spring cantata with The bells is a happy idea and these are enjoyably communicative, if not perhaps distinctive, performances. The recordings have been made with the co-operation of Danish Radio and the sound is resonant and attractively atmospheric—the opening of Spring somewhat misty but not ineffectively so. However, the words of the chorus are not very clear and unless you keep eyes glued to the page this makes it difficult to use the transliterated Russian texts, even with the English translation alongside. Since the booklet doesn't indicate when the soloists and when the chorus are individually participating, it is quite easy to get lost!
Spring isn't a simple evocation, but has a story to tell about a married couple who spend an agonized winter claustrophobically confined in their cottage by the frost and snow, after the wife has responded to the ''green rushing tides'' of spring and betrayed her husband by taking a lover. However, the seasons change and when the rushing tides return, her partner's black thoughts of revengeful murder mellow and turn to forgiveness. It's all a little sexist, but the performance here is warmly persuasive with the chorus very much involved and Jorma Hynninen a splendid soloist.
The performance of The bells is comparably felt, although the resonance tends to blunt, very slightly, the pungency of attack and the ''jangling, wrangling'' climax of the third section is made passionately expansive, rather than darkly intense. Again, one is impressed by the soloists, notably the soprano Elena Ustinova, eloquent but never squally in that Russian manner in her glowing evocation of wedding bells, the baritone returning with a mood of nostalgic Russian pessimism at the close. The music's local colour is strongly conveyed and these are both enjoyably spontaneous performances. None the less, Ashkenazy's volatile and strongly Slavonic version of The bells on Decca is undoubtedly more powerfully characterized, especially in conveying the ferocity of the second movement.'