There is a variety of options for approaching
Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible. Experiencing the original film score is a great way to hear everything, even though it doesn't hold together especially well as a piece of concert music. The oratorio version, complete with speaker, gathers the best music, although the speaker gets in the way of the music for some listeners. This "concert scenario" version by
Christopher Palmer is essentially the oratorio version with a few cuts of non-essential music, and with no speaker, and may offer the best of both worlds. If one opts for the "concert scenario," this recording with
Neeme Järvi leading the
Philharmonia Chorus and
Orchestra is the one to get. It's robustly vigorous, rhythmically driven, lyrically expansive, darkly brooding, and above all, incredibly violent when it needs to be.
Järvi, a hit or miss conductor much of the time, is hitting on all cylinders here, and he leads the London musicians in a performance that is immensely involving. Captured in cataclysmic digital sound by Chandos (test your stereo with the low brass and big percussion of "The Storming of Kazan"), this recording should thrill
Prokofiev fans.