Canter Bridge

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As I settle in to write this review, perfectly suitable used copies of this early Naxos CD are going for a dollar on amazon.com. Where do you find value like that? It’s like scratching around for an affordable one-room apartment and then stumbling on a tidy mansion whose owner will turn it over to you for $199/month.

Mussorgsky and Borodin, 19th-century Russian nationalist composers both of them, are often paired on musical offerings, not least because Borodin’s pieces are short enough to require a complement. These full-flower Romantic pieces are a great introduction for listeners who see nothing interesting in ‘classical’ music. The Russians are, if anything, interesting.

Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures’ is also an enduring anthology of something close to tone poems. Originally written for keyboard, Ravel orchestrated the works for a large assembly of musicians.

Daniel Nazareth and the Slovak Philharmonic are precise, spirited, and convincing. There is absolutely nothing sub-par about this recording, which helped to establish Naxos as a budget line on its way to something big.