These are the only two complete Tchaikovsky cycles available with a Russian conductor and orchestra. The Melodiya cycle of the numbered symphonies (recorded in 1967) is issued either as a box at bargain price, or as individual discs at mid price. The Melodiya Manfred(recorded in 1961) is a separate mid-price disc. The Canyon Classics cycle (recorded in 1990–92, live in Tokyo) is only obtainable as a seven-disc box—at full price. The orchestra for both cycles is, of course, the same; but in the later cycle it minds its 'manners' a little more, and is recorded with greater warmth, fullness and spaciousness.
The Melodiya recordings are variable, but I'll attempt a summary: internal balances and clarity are generally good but the sound lacks atmosphere, bloom (Manfred excepted) and a full bass, is inclined to harshness, overloading at climaxes, and flakiness at low levels, and is often limited in dynamic range (all of which can exaggerate the occasional brutal streak in the music-making). In the remastering process a noise gate is audibly at work reducing tape hiss and fuzz during the rests in Symphonies Nos. 2–5 and Romeo and Juliet, I'd rather have the background all the time; if it is constant, you get used to it. As for the editing, the joinery is good (apart from the missing first note of the wind band triplet in the Capriccio italien at 9'48''), but different takes often have different balances. The shorter works in this Melodiya set (recorded 1970–89) are generally cleaner (The Tempest excepted) with more space around them (Romeo and Juliet excepted) and a better bass. Fate and Voyevoda are outstanding.
Younger collectors will have their brass blare—and—wobble threshold sorely tested throughout most of this USSR set (and parts of the Canyon Classics set). Older collectors, at least those who have had shelves full of HMV / Melodiya LPs, will greet moments such as The Tempest's dragon-slayer Prospero with a warm smile of recognition. Then there's the horn solo in the Fifth Symphony's slow movement; less of a moonlit serenade, more of a fog-warning (the acoustic doesn't help here), but there's no denying that it is expressively played. For better, or for worse—depending on your point of view—they rarely play like this any more (it was gratifying, in a strangely masochistic way, at Pletnev's recent Festival Hall Tchaikovsky Fourth with his Russian National Orchestra, to witness Russian trumpets as purple-faced and determined as ever to fanfare Fate as a death-ray but the remainder of their brass playing also conformed to internationally acceptable standards).
The USSR woodwinds will I suspect have less 'vintage' appeal, equally unruly in tone and manner, which is fine for the fast moving folk-dance element, but often phrasing without interest (oboe at the start of the Fourth's slow movement), or with suspect ensemble tuning (return of the big tune in the Third's slow movement). In other words, below the standards of Mravinsky's 1960 Leningrad recordings of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Two of many exceptions, however, are the gorgeous clarinet solos in the Pathetique's first movement, and the lead into, and start of, Francesca's love music. Generally, the Federation woodwinds appear more expressive and easier on the ear, though the oboes are pale (possibly disadvantaged by the balance).
The USSR strings were the orchestra's undisputed glory, not always minding the finer points of Tchaikovsky's phrase and articulation markings but ever ready to sing out with firm, focused tone expressive abandon and fever-pitch intensity; ever ready too with the high-speed acrobatics (Ferdinand and Miranda in The Tempest propelled into each others arms for one final embrace, just as you thought the love music had finally spent itself), and some formidable accentuation; sparks and, I imagine, bow hairs, really do fly in the Pathetique Scherzo / March and Manfred finale. All these are glories, and there are many more besides, that today's Federation strings—separated violin desks these days—don't always match (partly, but only partly a question of recorded balance); but to be fair, if you don't have the USSR set to hand, there is still plenty to admire, not least their ability to inflect a Tchaikovsky melody without artifice. Time and again I was reminded of a remark of Ashkenazy's (in a recent television documentary) that Tchaikovsky's apparent sentimentality was ''sincere in Russian terms''.
The way Svetlanov now inflects, paces or shades the music would appear to have developed naturally as these artists have grown together over the years. There are only two instances where already questionable tempos—slow ones—have become even slower: the Second Symphony's March and the Third Symphony's finale. But if those two movements from the later set leave you casually contemplating your mantle-piece arrangement, many of the others in the early symphonies, from both sets, will leave no limb unstirred, energized by the vivid folk colourings (pizzicato strings as balalaikas) and driving, stamping, dance rhythms; more vivid and driving than you've heard them. The spirit of the dance even enlivens that potentially weak second subject from the Second Symphony's finale.
Indeed, it is the drive and drama of both sets that most linger in the memory. The fantasy, for instance, the 'light fantastic'—in every sense—of the Third Symphony's fourth movement, and Trio of the Fifth's third movement. In the later set Svetlanov guarantees grandstand finishes to the first five symphonies, and the way he uses his timpani in the first climax of the Pathetique's finale is pure theatre (timpani presence power is very strong in the later set) as is the unsolicited timpani roll and crescendo (in both sets) up to the moment of recapitulation in Fourth Symphony's first movement. The Fourth's Scherzo and finale, in both sets, must be amongst the fastest on disc. In general, is a more direct Tchaikovskian than either Mravinsky or Temirkanov (in their Leningrad / St Petersburg sets of the famous three), adjusting dynamics a great deal less than the former, and dynamics and tempo less than the latter. Perhaps he is best described as a less fussy, though less probing Tchaikovskian than either.
He is one of the very few Russians to have included Manfred in a cycle. In 1961 he recorded what Tchaikovsky wrote, and it rightly won a rosette in The Penguin Guide. It can still bravely face mid-price competition from Maazel and Muti, even though the scherzo is often too loud and the slow movement is sturdy when not passionate. The end of the first movement, from 16'33'' is one instance where the USSR trumpets should and do ride the storm—the marking is ffff con tutta forza e molto marcato—but where the Federation trumpets are just part of it. The older recording, too, is one of few to have held the finale together. How strange, then, that Svetlanov should choose, in 1992, to cut the same 118 bars from the centre of the finale as Toscanini, and further than that, like Temirkanov in a Prom concert a few years ago, round it off before the organ-led happy ending with a repeat of the end of the first movement (which, both times round, is beefed up with a Toscanini-like crashing gong). Since, as far as I know, Manfred has never been recorded this way, you may wish to investigate. The Canyon Classics notes and box make no mention of the cuts (in all, about seven minutes' worth), and the engineer in this Symphony, unlike its partners, takes time to get the levels fixed.
For the most part, these later recordings sound to be of genuinely live events. There is more evidence of an audience than in the average major company product claimed as 'live', but it is never distracting. Orchestral accidents are few, though the Scherzo of the Pathetique has little of the older recording's precision and control (the tempo is considerably faster); ''a bit of a party'' is what I wrote in my notes. More worrying is the discreet presence throughout the set of what I assume to be air conditioning—similar to a quiet roll on the gong. A minute or so of applause greets the end of each symphony, eking out the meagre CD timings (a symphony only per disc).
Many of the Melodiya couplings are valuable. No one is likely to make any great claim for the Capriccio italien or Romeo and Juliet, though they are never unremarkable. The string Serenade—with a full string band—is strong and passionate, not especially elegant, but predictably superb in the finale's Russian song and dance. Svetlanov uses the Russian collected edition (most others use Breitkopf) which does not include some of the rits. and dims. you may be expecting in the ''Waltz'', but which attaches (after a pause) an extra burst of C major to the end of the first movement. What an extraordinary piece Voyevoda is, a minor masterpiece of orchestration, with its pre-echoes of Sibelius's Nightride and Sunrise in the opening section, a Balakirev-like exoticism and sweetness at its centre, and the graphically depicted violent 13 death of its abrupt dosing pages. The playing here, as in Francesca and The Tempest, is often the stuff of legend. Indeed, I'm tempted to claim this Francesca the finest on disc, as vividly descriptive and intensely dramatic as Stokowski's famous New York account, but more securely played and realistically recorded. For the investigative Tchaikovskian, these couplings often duplicate, and as performances outclass, the recently reissued Dorati accounts (on bargain-price Double-Decca). Buying the Melodiya box as a bargain-price whole will gain you much that is unrepeatable, and unforgettable. According to Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky ''never feared to let himself go''. Neither does Svetlanov.'