Prokofiev: War & Peace
Alexander Melik-Pashayev offers a superb interpretation of one of Prokofiev's masterpieces, conducting a notable cast that includes Galina Vishnevskaya in her prime. This is a gutsy, full-throated reading, and while the score has been trimmed in places, the portions missing from the Bolshoi's version are mostly panegyrics to the Russian people that owe more of their inspiration to the commissars than to Euterpe--or to Tolstoi. As usual in Melodiya's Soviet-era recordings, the sound itself ranges from mediocre to terrible, and the best efforts of BMG's Western recording engineers to clean it up have been only partially successful.--Sarah Bryan Miller