Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1098 in Music
• Released on: 2008-10-27
• Number of discs: 4
• Format: Box set
• Dimensions: .36 pounds
• Running time: 261 minutes

Review
''No one is more warmly dramatic in Prokofiev than Jarvi, making his issues consistently recommendable.'' --The Guardian

Review
''These Chandos recordings from the mid-1980s are of the highest quality.'' --Penguin Guide

CD Description
Following the recent re-issues of Prokofiev orchestral works, Chandos now releases the superb Neeme Jarvi and Scottish National Orchestra recordings of Prokofiev's seven symphonies. Prokofiev has had few ambassadors as committed as Jarvi, and they are now available at 24-bit/96kHz on Chandos Classics.

Customer Reviews

An Embarrassment of Riches
No sooner had I very enthusiastically reviewed the complete set of Prokofiev symphonies done by Dimitri Kitajenko and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln Prokofiev - The Symphonies (see my review ), this complete set with Neeme Järvi and the Scottish National Orchestra came along. This set is a repackaging of the individual issues from the mid-1980s and they were all lauded at the time of their original release. Well, what's a person to do? My advice, since both of these box sets are budget-priced, is get 'em both! Certainly I have not lost my enthusiasm for the Kitajenko set, but this one by Järvi, surely one of the best Prokofiev conductors around these days, is just as attractive. And to be honest there isn't that much to differentiate the two sets. Both conductors clearly have the music in their bones and they both have marvelously responsive orchestras to work with. Neither orchestra is Russian, of course, but make no mistake: both of these orchestras are first-class. Not only that, Järvi had conducted the Scottish bunch in any number of other Prokofiev sets, so they clearly had his (and Prokofiev's) style firmly at their command.

There are some differences, of course, between the two sets. In general the Scottish Orchestra set has a lighter, more transparent sound, the Gürzenich a richer, deeper sound. The former makes it easier to penetrate the sometimes dense orchestration -- let's face, it's OFTEN dense with Prokofiev -- and this makes, for instance, the chromatic polyphony of the Second and Third Symphonies easier to hear. On the other hand the sound of, say, the two versions of the Fourth Symphony is more succulent with Kitajenko.

I do think that these two box sets are far superior to the other fairly recent complete traversal, that of Gergiev and the London Symphony, which I found frequently simply wayward for all the great playing by the LSO. I do still like the several Karajan recordings and the magnificent Third by Muti, but for a complete set I don't think you can go wrong with either Järvi or Kitajenko. Or with both.

One further word: the Järvi set's 1980s sound has been remastered beautifully and when I compare some of the individual symphonies in the present set with their earlier incarnations I find the sound improved. Kudos to the original engineer, Ralph Couzens, and the remastering engineer, Jonathan Cooper, for that.

Scott Morrison

Powerful, authentic Prokofiev at an amazing price
This set has good claim to be one of the very finest available. Jarvi directs superbly well and the members of Royal National Orchestra of Scotland reveal themselves as a really well integrated gtoup of musicians that exhibits a high degree of virtuosity. The weighty and difficult 2 Symphony, for example, is delivered with verve and and alert intelligence that clarifies the thick textues and makes great sense of the music. Symphony 6, for me the most moving of the set, receives a spine-tinglingly good performace. At any price this set is highly competitive but at the present price asked for by Amazon it is superb value.

Prokofiev secondo Neeme Jarvi
Un'ottima registrazione a costo conveniente, affidata a un grande interprete del repertorio russo novecentesco qual è Neeme Jarvi. Magari l'esecuzione non ha quel carattere chiaro e tagliente che si avverte sotto la direzione di Gergiev, che preferisco, ma non c'è dubbio che si tratta comunque di una interpretazione pregevole, adeguatamente valorizzata dalla qualità del suono.