The world premieres of Iolanta and The Nutcracker took place on 18 December 1892 at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. “The execution of both,” wrote the composer to his brother Anatoly the next day, “was magnificent, and that of the ballet perhaps too magnificent – its brilliance made one’s eyes tired.” Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of the one-act opera outside Russia on 3 January 1893 in Hamburg and also directed the Viennese premiere of Iolanta on 22 March 1900.

Following the successful publication on Cappriccio of all Shostakovich’s symphonies on CD, Dmitrij Kitajenko once again collaborates with the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln to perform the complete recording of all of Sergey Prokofiev’s seven symphonies. Together they embark on a very challenging project, both in terms of time and level of technical difficulty, a project that demanded huge efforts and potential from the orchestra conductor alike. Prokofiev’s symphonies could not be more varied. They were written at different times throughout the composer’s life and each one individually reflects the pressure of political dictatorship and forced submission to merciless censorship that was prevalent throughout the Soviet-era. On the other hand, the huge energy, the hopes and desires, emotional and social messages conveyed between the lines could not be vanquished even by dictators and censors. Dimitrji Kitajenko, the Lenningrad born conductor, was a child of the late Russian-socialist period so knows exactly how to decrypt the text and shows us how in every single phase of this new complete recording.

Chandos’ Rimsky-Korsakov symphony cycle effectively steals the thunder from Neeme Järvi’s set on Deutsche Grammophon. Dmitri Kitajenko’s grittier and bolder readings better present the music. While Järvi luxuriates in Gothenberg’s smooth sonorities, Kitajenko draws more stark sounds from his Bergen Philharmonic players. This is especially telling in the Antar Symhony (which Rimsky-Korsaskov later published as a “symphonic suite”) where Kitajenko’s gruff approach makes the second movement’s growling argument more forbidding.