ARIF MELIKOV (b.1933): Legend of Love - Ballet in 3 Acts.

Description: This 112-minute ballet dates from 1961, not long after the composer graduated from the Azerbaijan Conservatory where he studied under Kara Karayev. You know Karayev so you know what to expect from his student: graphically colorful exotic orchestration of music with its roots in Azerbaijani folk music, everything conforming to the dictates of Socialist Realism and as fun to listen to as similar scores by Karayev or even Khachaturian. There is a mystery about this release though: Gergiev would have been 15 years old at the date this recording is claimed to have been made. He was years away from even entering the Leningrad Conservatory. So what's going on here? The recording is not listed in John Bennett's Melodiya discography but that may be because it's a radio recording and wasn't issued on LP. But there's a Rozhdestvensky LP of two Melikov symphonies that's not in the discography either, so go figure... 2 CDs. Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra; Valery Gergiev (rec. 1968).