Of all
Neeme Järvi's recordings of
Prokofiev's orchestral music, this disc may be one of the most interesting because it includes three rarely recorded works: the Symphonic Suite from War and Peace, Summer Night, and Russian Overture. The first takes seven excerpts from the opera and turns them into a three-movement suite, which does not so much condense the work's action as turn the excerpts into a self-contained and extremely effective piece, of tremendous power and enormous intensity. Summer Night, from the opera The Duenna is a much lighter work, full of charm (oh, that Minuet!) and delight (oh, that Dance!). The Russian Overture is
Prokofiev in his best "let's show what we can do with a really big orchestra" mode, a work that is full of big tunes and bigger climaxes, all brilliantly scored, with rhythms carrying the force of a freight train.
Järvi leads
Philharmonia of London in rip-snorting accounts of Russian Overture and the War and Peace Suite, and an adorably small-scale reading of Summer Night. Captured in appropriately gargantuan digital sound, this disc should be heard by any sufficiently motivated admirer of the Russian composer.