A few years but a world of musical difference separate these pieces. The Third Symphony’s grand quest for the liberation of the spirit is thwarted by its ground plan: cyclical devices; a mismatch of mission and means. For all its glories, it seems to be forever hitting the buffers. And then there’s The Poem of Ecstasy, relatively concisely and genuinely triumphantly finding its state of ‘absolute being’ through freer management of its musical material. But if you adopt a very slow tempo for The Poem of Ecstasy’s slower sections, you risk losing its ‘follow-through’. Kitaienko (budget price) is an example. Golovschin has, if anything, even greater extremes of tempo, but more variety within them; and the timing, amplitude and force of his climaxes is considerably more cathartic, which creates its own follow-through. For these – and elsewhere (the Symphony as well) – he enlists extra percussion; but this, though probably unnecessary, and possibly irritating, is less worrying than Kitaienko’s added ‘Hollywood’ heavenly voices for the Poem’s final moment of ‘absolute being’. Golovschin also has a fine solo trumpet (not in the least recognizably old-style Russian) with exactly the right degree of prominence. In short, this Poem is done with massive conviction and real theatrical flair.
As noted in previous reviews of the Naxos Scriabin cycle (12/96 and 2/97), this is unfussy studio sound (more obviously in the Symphony); in other words, after Ashkenazy (full price) and Kitaienko, it is comparably flat and dry; and, because of the unrestricted dynamic range, necessarily low level (not a problem once you’ve found the new volume setting and the willingness to be overwhelmed by Golovschin’s cymbal and gong-capped climaxes). It also shows up Decca’s much more glamorous balance for Ashkenazy as selective, rather overheated and with dynamic levels, especially in The Poem, very manipulated. Ashkenazy’s Berlin strings undoubtedly have the greater profile and lustre – the Moscow strings don’t have the sort of body and soul you might be expecting from Russians, but their cellos and basses often deliver beyond the call of duty, particularly in the developments of both outer movements of the Symphony (the black catastrophes of the first, and the urgent leaping of the third). General discipline is good. Golovschin is a conductor to watch.JS