Word: kajanus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Sibelius: Belshazzar's Feast (London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Kajanus; Victor: 4 sides; $2.50). Incidental music to a play by Sibelius' friend Hjalmar Procopé, Finnish Minister to the U. S. Finnish Orientalism is queer, but pleasing...
Sibeliophiles may find impressive the incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast, recorded on Victor for the first time by Robert Kajanus and the London Philharmonic (M715). I find it intolerably labored and mediocre. A self-conscious stab at the sort of exotic orchestral coloring one finds in Rimsky-Korsakoff, Belshazzar's Feast purports to describe scenes at an eastern potentate's court. The first and last movements, "Oriental Procession" and "Khadra's Dance," are nothing but meaningless jumbles of sound, with no melodic interest whatsoever and very little success in evoking any imaginative picture. The middle two movements, "Night...