"...All round an enjoyable recording, with fine playing and interesting interpretive ideas."

Gavin Dixon - musicwebinternational.com - 10 February 2012
 

"This is deeply impressive orchestral playing:exuberant, full-hearted and characterful...The moment when the blazing glory of The Great gate at Kiev emerges from Baba-Yaga is perfectly managed, and when the leash is let off the BSO in these glorious final pages, the effect is breathtaking"

James McCarthy - Classic FM Magazine-  January 2012

    Performance (Musorgsky) *****       (Tchaikovsky) ***           Recording ****

Daniel Jaffé - BBC Music Magazine -  February 2012

 

"...the Bournemouth orchestra responds with style and drive – all wind sections in superlative form – and a symphony that is often dismissed as a poor relation of its better known successors comes across as a masterpiece, bursting with atmosphere, melody and martial splendour. Karabits follows up with a Mussorgsky Pictures from an Exhibition that is not so much a filler, more another knockout performance."

The Financial Times

"The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Karabits have also decided to record Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures’ alongside a Tchaikovsky symphony, but this time the one he was writing while Mussorgsky was creating his gallery tour: Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony, the ‘Little Russian’. Now, you realise pretty quickly that there’s nothing diminutive about the work or about this performance, and by the time we reach the martial andante second movement, they really hit their stride. The second movement of the ‘Little Russian’ symphony, Tchaikovsky’s second, and the fullness of the string sound and the colours of the winds are really satisfying in this nicely weighted performance from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirill Karabits. Nothing’s overcooked. Everything counts, though: the details emerge clearly and never at the expense of the flow and rhythmic drive of the performance, and that rich recorded sound does them no harm at all. After the ‘Little Russian’’s thunderous ending, the raw bite of the original version of Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’ has thrilling impact, and as gallery-guides in Ravel’s orchestration of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ they’re excellent companions. Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky from Bournemouth – you’ll find it on the ONYX Classics label."

Andrew MacGregor - BBC Radio 3 CD Review - 26 November 2011

                    Classical CD of the Week
"Strong rhythmic definition, clarity of orchestral texture and firmly controlled impetus give the Tchaikovsky a definite boost. Karabit’s discerning approach gives the symphony terrific cohesion and grandeur of stature. Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain...graphically conjures up an atmosphere of demonic frenzy....Pictures (at an Exhibition) also come across with their images clearly brought into focus...Karabits is an inspired architect..." ****

Geoffrey Norris - The Daily Telegraph - 12 November 2011