Nikolaï Golovanov conducts Tchaikovsky

Nikolai Golovanov [1891-1953] was known in the West as the ‘Russian Furtwängler’ in the ’40s and ’50s. A visionary conductor who transformed even the most pedestrian pieces with ecstatic fervour – his hyper-dramatic 1812 Overture is frighteningly intense – he was officially written out of Soviet history and forgotten after being purged in 1952 and he conveniently died the following year. Fortunately Praga Digitals have remastered these mythical Tchaikovsky readings from 1952, including the ‘Moscow’ cantata commissioned for the coronation of Alexander III, given here in a ‘Sovietised’ text by Machistov erasing all imperial and religious references: a pearl of epic Russian archaism built of a flamboyant splendour. This hybrid SACD includes the 1812 Overture without artillery, the rare ‘Voyevoda’, plus Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ in its original edition. Resurrected icons by one of the greatest talents to ever hold a baton.