Shostakovich
& other
Soviet Composers






























    		
      













 Andrei Eshpai CDs






Recently Moscow Musical Publishers released a 3 CD-set with works of 
Andrei Eshpai. The 3 CDs contain more than 50 short works of this composer, in fact the 'light', jazzy music for piano, for ensemble and for orchestra, including vocal pieces.
 
Please check the complete list of recorded works on this CD-set.

By e-mail you can contact Moscow Musical Publishers.









 Irina Belova CDs






Irina Belova is a young composer from Russia, member of the Composer's Union of Russia and member of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia. 
She graduated from the Krasnoyarsk State Institute of music and Theatre in 1999. Her works have already been performed by the best professional ensembles in Russia and Sweden.


Last year her concertos for piano, cello, saxophone and chamber orchestra were issued on CD.







Pentatone's CD with Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 in G major opus 55 and Igor Stravinsky's 
Divertimento, ballet suite from "Le Baiser de la Fee" (PTC 5186 061) is in fact not a CD with music by Soviet composers. However this CD is worth to mention because of the fine performance and the great sound recording quality. 
The performers are the Russian National Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.












 Boris Tchaikovsky CDs





For the admirers of Boris Tchaikovsky Albany issued an interesting CD with World Premiere Recordings
of Boris Tchaikovsky's works for piano: his two Piano Sonatas (1944 and 1952), Eight Pieces 
for Children (1952), Pentatonica (1993), Natural Modes (1993) and Piano Sonatina (1946).

Olga Solovieva, a rising star from Russia is playing the piano.











Good news for the admirers of Boris Tchaikovsky the Swiss company Relief issued 
an interesting CD with Boris Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 and his Symphony with harp, performed by the Tchaikovsky 
Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio, directed by Vladimir Fedoseyev.









And more good news for the admirers of Boris Tchaikovsky 
Northern Flowers recorded in June 2004 Boris Tchaikovsky's "The Last Spring", a vocal cycle to words by Nikolai Zabolotsky for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet and piano. Ludmilla Shkirtil (mezzo-soprano), 
Yuri Serov (piano), Natalia Sechkariova (flute) and Adil Feodorov (clarinet) performed this cycle. Furthermore this Northern Flowers CD NF/PMA 9928 contains Georgi Sviridov's "A Russian Flying Away", a vocal poem 
to words by Sergei Yessenin, composed in 1970. This recording is from January 2005.




Melodiya issued performances of the composer himself. The contents of Melodiya's MEL CD 10 00944 are Boris Tchaikovsky's 
Sonata for cello and piano in E minor (with Mstislav Rostropovich), Lyrics of Pushkin, vocal cycle for voice and piano (with Galina Vishnevskaya) 
and Partita for cello and chamber ensemble (with Mstislav Rostropovich, Alexander Dedyukhin, I. Khovov, Yu Godin, A. Mamyko and the composer himself).









Another interesting CD is a Hyperion CD (CDA 67413) with works of Boris Tchaikovsky: Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra directed by Alexander Rudin perform his Symphonietta for string orchestra (1953), 
his Chamber Symphony (1967) and his Six Etudes for strings and organ (1976). 














 Boris Tishchenko CDs 


Two extra ordinary CDs with symphonies of Boris Tishchenko have been released by Northern Flowers. 
 The first CD (NF/PMA 9942) contains his Symphony No. 1 from 1961 and the Blockade Chronicle Symphony from 1984 in a performance by 
the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Serov (Symphony No. 1) and Andrey Chistiakov (Blockade Symphony). 
The First Symphony was composed when Tishchenko was still a Conservatory student. He dedicated this composition to one of his teachers Viktor 
Vladimirovich Voloshinov. The symphony has five movements: Moderato, Andante, Presto, Allegretto and 
Allegro risoluto.

The Blockade Symphony remind of several compositions of the 20th century that address the theme of war, such as Britten's War Requiem, Shostakovich's 
Symphony No. 7 and the Requiem to words by Anna Akhmatova of Tishchenko himself. The title (Chronicle) determines the design of its composition. It is not divided into movements; rather, images of the blockade years rush before the listener. 
The concept of the composition explains the extraordinary nature of tools used by the composer, such as an enormous orchestra, an enhanced percussion group and diverse sound effects. The symphony is based on material from the soundtrack to the play "Such a Long Winter" by 
Yuri Voronov written in the same year 1984.


The second CD (NF/PMA 9947) is a recording of a performance of Tishchenko's Symphony No. 6 by the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky with 
Valentina Yuzvenko (soprano) and Elena Rubin (contralto). Tishchenko composed this symphony four years after the completion of the Blockade Chronicle Symphony. 
 The symphony is a scope of themes related to images of war, destruction and loss, of the tragic colisions of the 20th century. It is a vocal symphony. Its conceptual base combines intense symphonic development and a vocal poetical plot. 
It is these two aspects that define the symphony's concept, content, and imagery. On the other hand, the very genre solution of the Sixth appears to be much unlike the oratorio models so representative for music of the 20th century. The dramatic plot of the symphony and the tools of creative generalization 
in it are far from a program descriptiveness or plot-linked particularity. The poetic texts that Tishchenko choose for the basis of the symphony are by Anatoly Naiman, Anna Akhmatova, 
Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam and Vladimir Levinzon. The theme of death appears in each of the five movements from a new perspective - the terrible nightmare of war, night visions, the long-gone past. 
The symphony is dedicated to Yevgeny Mravinsky, an oustanding conductor whose life was tied to one of the most difficult and tragic periods in the development of russian art in the 20th century.







 Yebgeny Golubev CDs






Melodiya released a CD with two 'historical' recordings of Tatiana Nikolayeva in her 
performance of Yevgeny Golubev's 
Piano Concerto No. 3 opus 40
and his Piano Sonata No. 4 in F minor opus 22. The recordings are made in 1974 and 1976. 
The Third Piano Concerto was written in 1954. Golubev dedicated the concerto to Tatiana Nikolayeva. All musical 
themes of the composition are simple, easy to listening and perceived as original converting of Russian music traditions.

The Fourth Piano Sonata (1942) is a monumental composition, in power of collisions and richness of events comparable with a symphony.

Both compositions consist of three movements.







 Sergei Prokofiev CDs


PentaTone Music issued a fine CD with two wonderful works of Sergei Prokofiev: his 
Symphony no. 5 in B flat opus 100 and his Ode to the End of the War opus 105. 
 In this performance, recorded in a hybrid multichannel super audio format (PentaTone 
Classics PTC 5186 083), Vladimir Jurowski conducts the Russian National Orchestra.

Symphony No. 5 is my favourite Prokofiev Symphony. It is full of catchy tunes and melodic ideas, yet it remains transparent. 
It is an epic work, in the best sense of the word, and overwhelming in its purposiveness.

His Ode to the End of the War dates from 1945. It is written for a truly extraordinary ensemble of instruments. 
Prokofiev composed the work for 8 harps, 4 pianos, wind orchestra, percussion and 8 double basses.







 Various Soviet Composers CDs 


Toccata Classics issued some remarkable recordings. Besides Veljo Tormis' Works for men's voices (TOCC 0073) and 
Viktor Stepanovich Kosenko's Eleven Etudes in the Form of Old Dances for piano opus 19 (TOCC 0036) following three CDs are particularly 
of interest.

The first CD is Peteris Plakidis' Music for string orchestra (TOCC 0004). 
Works on this CD are:

- Songs for the Wind and Blood

- Music for piano, strings and timpani

- Concerto for two oboes and strings

- Concerto-Ballad for two violins, piano and strings.

Written as his final diploma submission at the end of his undergraduate studies in the Latvian Conservatory in 1969, Plakidis' Music for piano, 
strings and timpani already displays many of the elements of his mature style. Its obvious and acknowledged model is Bartok's Music for strings, piano, percussion and celeste. 
 Plakidis is not afraid or reluctant to use existing music in overt or subtle ways, and it is worth noting that the Bartok was not well known in Latvia 
in the 1960s. This work uses a folk-song in a remarkable way. Used in this work in an abstract way, the significance of the song and the hidden protest against Soviet 
oppression it implies would have been lost on non-Latvian, non-musical authorities.

The melodic and harmonic style of the single-movement Concerto for two oboes and strings is essentially diatonic. Its modernism comes from the way in which the composer 
consolidates clashing traditional triadic harmonies in the string orchestra and interweaves the sinuous melodic lines of the oboes so that there is gentle, intriguing conflict.

The Concerto-Ballad is a single-movement Concerto grosso which, in the manner of a Baroque concerto, pits the chamber group of two solo violins and piano against a string orchestra. 
The drama of conflicts created by the juxtaposition of the two groups is mirrored in the musical language.

Plakidis' sensitivity for the voice is nowhere better demonstrated than in the cycle Songs for the Wind and Blood of settings of poems by Astrida Ivaska. The dark 
expressionist colour of the mezzo-soprano voive is brilliantly highlighted by the atmospheric writing for string orchestra.


The second CD is Ester Mägi's Orchestral Music (Toccata Classics TOCC 0054) with recordings of her Piano Concerto, Symphony, Variations for piano, clarinet and chamber orchestra, 
Vesper and Bukoolika.

Mägi's Piano Concerto evokes some of the folk-based works of the Estonian composer Tubin. With its folk-melodies and dance-rhythms 
the Piano Concerto may be considered to reflect what was expected of a Soviet composer in the early 1950s. And yet the rhythmic and motivic energy of the work 
clearly point to neo-Classical models like Stravinsky or Bartok, as well as Tubin.

 The Variations for piano, clarinet and chamber orchestra is one of her most popular instrumental compositions: 
its passages of lyrical dialogue between the soloists, colourful impressionistic scenes and sections dominated by motivic energy form a well-balanced and integrated whole.

Mägi's Symphony is based on the contrast of vital rhythmic motion in the first and last movements with a more reflexive central movement. 
There is no traditional tonal or motivic development; instead, the rise of musical tension is generated by texture, by dynamic means and contrasting sections 
based on repititive rhythmic figures.

The style of Vesper is very different from the other compositions on this CD, being inspired by rhythms, counterpoint and cadences of a cappella polyphony. Vesper consists of 
successive sections like an old canzona or sonata, the sections differing from each other by their rhythmic patterns and character of movement. Bukoolika is a series of pastoral scenes for orchestra.


The third CD is Vytautas Bacevicius' Orchestral Music (TOCC 0049) with recordings of his Symphonies Nos. 2 & 6, Piano Concerto No. 1, Poeme Electrique and Graphique. 
The mood of the period the Second World War broke out with Bacevicius in Argentina is clearly depicted in his Symphony No. 2, titled Della Guerra. The first movement deals with the beginning of the war: Germany attacks Poland; 
planes flying, bombs raining down and occupation. The second movement is about the consequences of war: funeral processions, desperate grief, suffering of people. 
The third movement is a picture of the Western front, the might of the Maginot Line. Bacevicius employs illustrative effects: in the first movement chromatic woodwind passages imitating 
the whir of falling bombs and thunderous, highly dissonant, chords in the brass, percussion and strings like explosions; in the second the step of a funeral march in woodwinds and strings, 
outcries from the brass, tolling bells and strokes of percussion suggestive of clumps of soil falling on the coffin.

 His Symphony No. 6 is composed in a single extended movement, characterised by uninterrupted motion and a multifaceted musical texture. 
Mystical in atmosphere, it boils over in expressive outbursts. One can distinguish five stages of development, each increasingly distanced from the initial shape but all united by meams of variant development.

Lithuanian folksong motifs are interwoven in the fabric of his Piano Concerto No. 1, although the work as a whole is noteworthy for its Scriabinesque harmony and its complex rhythms.
A quotation from a popular Lithuanian folk song appears in the finale. The four sections of the concerto form a single span, where the piano part dominates. His Poeme Electrique and his First Piano Concerto 
most clearly reflect the composer's second, modern period, during which his atonal and expressionist style was developed. Graphique is distinctively avant-garde and influenced by Bacevicius interest in abstract art.





The new CD "Kara Karayev's Circle" contains piano pieces by contemporary Azery composers, performed by the pianist Rena Rzayeva. 
Six from the eleven pieces are compositions of Kara Karayev:

- Prelude No. 2 in C minor

- Prelude No. 5 in D major

- Prelude No. 7 in A major

- Prelude No. 16 in C sharp minor

- Prelude No. 18 in G sharp minor

- Prelude No. 24 in F minor.

The other five pieces are:

- Arif Babayev: Piano Sonata No. 2

- Aghin Alizadeh: Pieces "Dastan" and "Ancient Games"

- Salman Gambarov: Varialudes

- Javanshir Kuliyev: Seven Pieces with Interludes in Mugams

- Rahilia Hasanova: Piano Sonata devoted to Rena Rzayeva.


Nikolai Medtner was born in 1880 in Moscow. He studied first with his mother and an ucle. 
At the age of twelve he entered the MOscow Condervatory. He left in 1900 
with a gold medal for piano, but decided to concentrate on composition. In 1921 he followed his friend 
Rachamaninov and others into exile, and, apart from a concert tour in 1927, he did not see Russia again. 
He had settled near Paris in 1925. English friends persuaded him to live in England, which he did from 1935 until his death. 
His compositions are almost exclusively for piano. Brilliant Classics issued a 7 CD-set with his Piano Works, including the complete 
Piano Sonatas and 
piano pieces such as Forgotten Melodies opus 39, Fairy Tales, Romantic Sketches for the Young opus 54 and Three Novelles opus 17. 






The Trio Animae is a Swiss Trio: Tomas Dratva (piano), Jean-Christophe Gawrysiak (violin) and Dieter Hilpert (cello).

Their CD Souls in the Dark (Cascavelle VEL 3071) contains works of Pärt, 
Schnittke and Vasks. In his Mozart-Adagio Arvo Pärt takes as his starting point the F minor middle movement from Mozart's F major Sonata. Pärt quietly comments on this movement in a personal 
reaction to the death of his friend, the violist Oleg Kagan.

Alfred Schnittke dedicated his Trio for violin, cello and piano to Alexander Potapov, the Russian neuro-surgeon who supervised Schnittke's rehabilitation after severe strokes. The steely rhythmical eruptions interrupt the restless yet motionless dreams.

Peteris Vasks describes in his Piano Trio Episodi Canto Perpetuo a difficult journey through the realms of distress, disappointment and the suffering of love, which, in particular, forms the central point of the Canto.







This CD is a homage to Alfred Schnittke. It is a recording of pianist Svetlana Ponomareva of Alfred Schnittke's 
selected piano music. It includes the expansive Sonata for piano No. 1 (1988), the premier recording of the entire suite for piano solo 
"Little Piano Pieces" (1971) and a live recording of the Concerto for piano and strings (1979) with the Omsk Chamber Orchestra conducted by Yuri Nikolaevsky in April 2003.






MV Productions released a CD in homage to the 10th anniversary of the passing of Alfred Schnittke. 
Svetlana Ponomareva performs Alfred Schnittke's Five Aphorisms (1990) and his Piano Sonata No. 3 (1992). 
 Schnittke: "I need to start from the assumption 
that the world of spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that everything which causes disharmony in the world, all 
that is monstrous, inexplicable and dreadful - and this is something which Ivan Karamazov could not understand - is also part of this order. 
And the formula for world harmony is most likely linked not to the blurring of evil but to the fact that, when 
drawn into a harmonious picture of the whole, even evil changes its function."

The four movements of Schnittke's Piano Sonata No. 3 are: 1. Lento, 2. Allegro, 3. Lento and 4. Allegro.

Schnittke was an admirer of Bach's music: "Bach is a far unachievable ideal. He is in the center of everything. 
It's the sun that shines in all directions."
So Svetlana Ponomarenko added to these two Schnittke's works performances of J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor BWV 849 and 
Bach's French Suite No. 5 in G major BWV 816.



The Italian company Stradivarius issued the first volume of the complete 
piano music of Alfred Schnittke, (Stradivarius STR 33753) performed by Giampaolo Nuti 
(and Daniela De Santis in Schnittke's Sonatina for piano four hands).

Music for piano occupies a position of the first importance in Schnittke's extensive catalogue, 
despite its relatively restricted dimensions. Although this genre was not always easy to handle, 
it allowed the musician to discover a very particular creative, and in some ways favoured, 
dimension. An illuminating example in order better to understand this atypical link of 
Schnittke's with the piano is provided by the Sonatina for piano four hands written 
in 1994, not long before his death. In fact, in spite of its apparently free and childish 
character, this work shows complex and completely personal poetics, which cannot be attributed 
to the neo-c1assicism of Stravinsky and to the idea of "music at the root". Here the reference 
to an eighteenth-century style, from the almost domestic tone and Biedermeier, is quite evident.

 
In the tendency of brief and simple music, we can also include Little Piano Pieces of 
1971: a collection linked to a children's genre already cultivated by musicians such as 
Schumann, Debussy and Bartok, and whose didactic recipient one evinces from the dedication to 
his son Andrej, who performed the first four pieces of the collection in a concert.

By means of the piano the musician made his first steps in the difficult world of dodecaphony 
with the Prelude and Fugue of 1963: a piece that, together with others, launched an 
experiment which would reach completion in five years, but was rich in results and fruitful 
for the future. In this composition, moreover, Schnittke seemed to overcome some problems in 
his relationship with dodecaphony, even though he used a form which in theory did not make 
his task easier, in which the imitative counterpoint risked emphasising certain combinative 
aspects of the method which are extraneous to the musician.

The Five Aphorisms of 1990 represent perhaps one of the most radical results of his 
late style. Its fascinating obscurity is also reinforced by an absolutely particular reference 
to literature, in that the possibility that the execution of the pieces alternates with the 
reading of poems by Joseph Brodsky (as happened in the first performance) is completely 
uncertain: the interpreter, in fact, is not only free to consider the pieces as preludes or 
postludes, but can even decide which poems to couple with these pieces. The music, therefore, 
is freed from a direct relationship with the word, from every task of comment and illustration.

In some aspects, the Aphorisms can also be considered as the fragmentary re-proposal of 
elements which had already been the focus of one of the most significant works of all 
Schnittke: the First Piano Sonata of 1987. This Sonata, dedicated to the pianist 
Vladimir Feltsman (whose name, together with that of the author, is repeatedly transposed 
into notes during the work), is an enormous structure in four movements which follow one 
another without interruption according to an alternation of slow and fast progressions, 
within a form which is lacerated by incredible contrasts but profoundly cohesive.


Fuga Libera issued a really fine CD with three 
compositions by Alfred Schnittke.


Improvisation and fugue was written as a set examination piece for the Tchaikovsky 
Competition in 1966 but it met with no success, as not one candidate was interested in it, 
and it was not premiered until 1973 by Vladimir Krainev, First Prize of the 1970 Tchaikovsky 
Competition. Variations on a chord  (1965) was also composed as a test piece, but this 
time for the final exam of a student at the Reinhold Glière Music School in Moscow, 
Irina Katayeva, whom Schnittke had married a few years earlier.

 
One can recognise in both scores the tutelary shades of Schönberg and Hindemith, but this 
'formalism' was no longer condemned in the Soviet Union as it had been twenty years previously. 
In addition to the atonal means mentioned by Schnittke one should point out the recourse to 
microtonality, for quarter-tones or lesser intervals are present in most of his works, 
in particular those that contrast strings with the piano, this latter necessarily being the 
guardian of tonality as opposed to the strings for which all intervals are possible. This is 
demonstrated by the Concerto for piano and strings composed in 1979. By this time 
Schnittke had al ready composed such major works as the First Symphony, the Quintet, the First 
Concerto Grosso and the First Cello Sonata, scores that showed growing confidence and mastery.

Things were quite different with this Piano Concerto which he had been asked to write by 
Vladimir Krainev, for, Schnittke not being satisfied with the result, the premiere had to be 
postponed, and it was a different score that was first performed in December 1979. 
It abandoned the clear-cut movements of classical form in favour of a continuously 
unfolding series of episodes that Schnittke himself referred to as Traumwandlerisch, i.e. 
like sleepwalking. A dreamy introduction on the piano leads indeed to dream references 
including, in particular, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, not so much for the work in itself 
as for its being an allusion to the death of Shostakovich who had used the same figure in 
his valedictory work, the Viola Sonata opus 147 (1975).


Quartz Music issued a CD (Quartz QTZ 2052) with a performance of Alfred Schnittke's Concerto for Three, performed by
Roman Mints (violin), Maxim Rysanov (viola) and Kristine Blaumane (cello) 
with the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Mikel Toms. This concerto was written for Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and 
Mstislav Rostropovich. Schnittke drew on the names of each to determine the musical material - for instance, he extracted the G, D and Es of Kramer's name for the opening of the third movement. 
The title of the concerto for Three specifically avoids the aimable implications of a Triple Concerto. Schnittke isolates his three protaginists until the final movement, when they enter the fray 
as combatants more than conversationalists. The title of this composition has another meaning: in Russian, 'for three' alludes to the tradition of three red-nosed drinkers, sometimes complete strangers, sharing a bottle of vodka to cut the expense - a grim image 
from which Schnittke derived a certain dark humour. This CD is completed with performances of Marjan Mozetich's Concerto for violin and string orchestra "Affairs of the Heart" and
Elena Langer's "Platch" for violin and string orchestra, a world premiere recording.



Toccata Classics issued volume 1 of 
Galynin's Piano Works, performed by Olga Solovieva (TOCC 0076).

Between 1939 and 1941 Galynin wrote six piano sonatas. Nearly a quarter of a century later 
he revised and assembled the three shortest of these into the Sonata Triad (1963). 
The concentrated nature of the Sonata Triad reflects this process of distillation. 
The motor-like rhythms and abrupt transitions within may take their cues from Prokofiev, 
whose Sixth Piano Sonata (1940) can at times be heard lurking in the background. 
Yet its exuberant energy and rich store of ideas are uniquely Galyninesque. 
Each of the three brief movements of the Sonata Triad is marked Allegro, bears 
the title Sonata, and, in one way or another, presents a telescoped version of the 
classical sonata-allegro form.

 
From the emphasis on formal argument found in the Sonata Triad, Galynin, in his 
Suite for piano of 1945 turns to a more poetic manner of expression with firmer 
technical assurance. As in the remaining works on this disc, he shows his remarkable gifts 
as a miniaturist, here with ever-increasing refinement.

In each of the Four Preludes Galynin seems to be paying homage to either Chopin or Prokofiev, 
though with a decidedly French accent. The first two preludes impress with their subdued 
tones and graceful gestures. The delightful Scherzando, with its teasing wrong notes and 
whimsical repetitions, is perhaps the earliest work for which one might coin the term 
Galyninesque. The final prelude, Lento, gives it over to Prokofiev, with its lilting 
cantilena accompanied by chords in parallel motion as it builds to a stirring virtuosic plateau.

The Waltz in A flat major shows Galynin again indulging himself in the acrobatic delicacy 
of the French muse. Dance features the kind of graceful humour one might find in 
Kabalevsky’s piano music, here with a lively tune whose wrong-note displacements gleefully 
tilt the harmony from B flat to A. Lying at the centre is a frolicking idea in F sharp minor. 
In the Scherzo a breathless two-note figure clamours along, gets tackled midway 
by a few clashing metric shifts, then regains its momentum to arrive safely home, 
again in F sharp minor.

The Spanish Fantasy finds the young Galynin continuing the century-old Russian 
preoccupation with the music of the Iberian peninsula. The work can be heard as a precursor 
to Rodion Shchedrin’s well-known encore piece, Imitating Albeniz, written more than a decade 
later. A sultry dance with exotic rhythms and scale patterns shows Galynin taking a 
self-effacing excursion into the idiom of Albéniz, Granados and Turina. 
Three Pieces from The Tamer Tamed show boundless wit and cunning melodic invention, complete with whimsical Galyninesque 
turns of phrase. After a gracefully balletic Gavotte, the Intermedio runs amok with 
delightful slapstick abandon, followed by a March that takes impish delight in 
its own unexpected modulations.

Galynin wrote four pieces with the titles ‘Siskin’, ‘Little Hare’, ‘Bear’, and ‘Waltz’. 
While preparing the pieces for their 1965 publication, Galynin changed the title of 
the ‘Waltz’ to ‘Swans’, and composed one additional piece, ‘Elephant’, completing the 
musical menagerie At the Zoo. 
(Fragments of the original text to this disc written by Louis Blois)



 PRS Empire of Music issued a 2 CD disc set with 
a Video DVD and an Audio CD with works by Tolibkhon Shakhidi. The DVD and the CD contain following works:

- "Prazdnestvo", symphonic poem

- "Firdaus-Noma", concerto grosso No. 2 for string orchestra

- Symphonic Dances from the ballet "Siyavush"

- Symphonic Dances from the ballet "Rubai Hayam"

- "The Contrasts of Time" for soprano and symphony orchestra

- Piano Concerto No. 3

- "Anchor: Sufi and Budda", etude-tableaux for orchestra

- "Sado", symphonic poem

- "Anchor: March" for symphony orchestra

The performers are the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, conducted by Alexander Slutsky.

Soloists are Hibla Gerzmava (soprano) and Ekaterina Mechetina (piano).






Julia Fischer was born in Munich, Germany in 1983. For her first CD (Pentatone PTC 5186 059) in Super Audio format she chose three interesting Violin Concertos: 
Khachaturian's Violin Concerto, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 and 
Glazunov's Violin Concerto.

The origins of Khachaturian - his native Armenia - are clearly audible in his Violin Concerto. 
Serge Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 contains all the typical characteristics of the composer - his Russian side, his sarcastic side, his ironic side and also his lyrical side. 
Glazunov's Violin Concerto is romantic with catchy themes as well as dialogues between the violin and all orchestral instruments.

Julia Fischer performs these concertos with the Russian National Orchestra, conducted by Yakov Kreizberg.





Recently Hyperion issued a CD with the first recording of Nikolai Roslavetz's Chamber Symphony, composed between May 1934 and February 1935, 
not long after Roslavetz had returned to Moscow 
from Uzbekistan. It is known that he showed the score to Miaskovsky, who was impressed, but he was unsuccessful in 
securing a performance, which was probably out of the question after the notorious Pravda denunciations of Shostakovich in 1936. 
The score of the Chamber Symphony in four movements: Largo ma non troppo - Allegro risoluto, Adagio, 
Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace and Finale: Lentoso - Allegro non troppo, energico was not published until 2005. Besides this Chamber Symphony the CD contains the symphonic poem In the Hours of the New Moon.


Felix Blumenthal was the mentor of Maria Grinberg, Heinrich Neuhaus, Alexander Gauk, Vladimir Horowitz and many other performers. 
 He was born in the South of Ukraine. Blumenfeld composed his 
entire life. His earliest works date from his student years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Over fifty opus numbers comprise his musical output. These include thirty-four songs, one symphony, 
a Mazurka for orchestra and an Allegro de Concert for piano and orchestra, several chamber works and many piano pieces. 
This CD contains all Preludes and Impromptus of Felix Blumenfeld, performed by the pianist Philip Thomson, including the Twenty-Four Preludes opus 17. Blumenfeld was the first important composer to 
publish a set loosely modeled after Chopin's famous opus. Four years later Scriabin completed his Preludes; Arensky did it in 1901 and Cui in 1903. This CD is an interesting World Premiere Recording.


Another interesting CD offered by Ivory Classics is the double CD "Nadia Reisenberg: 100th Anniversary Tribute" 
with Dmitri Kabalevsky's Twenty-Four Preludes opus 36,  Peter Tchaikovsky's Twelve Pieces for piano opus 40, Souvernir de Hapsal opus 2, Romance in F minor opus 5 and
the Nocturne and Humoresque of opus 10. The 2 CD-set ends with piano pieces of 
Sergei Rachmaninov: Opus 3 Nos. 1,2,3 & 5, Opus 10 Nos. 2,3 & 7 and Polka de W.R. Nadia Reisenberg was born in 1904 in Vilnius. The Reisenbergs left Russia and went to London, Berlin and in 1922 to New York. 
She gave the first American performances of works by Shostakovich and Stravinsky, played concertos of Prokofiev and Mischa Portnov all with the New York Philharmonic. and chose Etudes of Scriabin, Stravinsky and Prokofiev to close what would 
be her last solo recital at Carnegie Hall in 1947. The recordings on this CD-set are recorded in 1954 and 1955 and 24-bit remastered.





Sergei Bortkiewicz is a less known composer. He was born in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov on 28 February 1877. At the St. Petersburg Conservatory he studied with Anatol Liadov and piano with Karl van Arek. 
In 1902 he completed his studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1904 until the outbreak of the first world war he lived in Berlin. Then he had to leave Berlin and travelled to Kharkov. 
In 1922 he decided to move to Vienna, where he died on 25 October 1952. Many of his works show the influence of Chopin, Wagner, Liszt, Henselt, Tchaikovsky and even Scriabin. 
Recently the Finnish company FC Records released the first volume with Bortkiewicz piano works (FCRCD 9714): 
Six Pensees Lyriques, Lamentations et Consolations, Quatre Morceaux and Preludes. 
Jouri Somero, born in 1963 is the pianist.






Cello Classics issued a CD titled Russian Soul. This CD contains three great performances of the famous cellist Daniil Shafran.
Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra opus 125 is recorded in 1961 live with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by 
Gennadi Rozhdestvensky in the Great Hall of the 
Moscow Conservatory. This Sinfonia Concertante is a re-working of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto in E minor opus 58.

The second composition is Kabalevsky's Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major opus 77. This Concerto was 
recorded in 1967 with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer.

The last work is Tsintsadze's Five Pieces on Folk Themes for cello and piano, recorded in 1957 with Nina Musinyan (piano). This recording 
represents a treasure house of the cellist's expressive powers and effortless ability to communicate directly with an audience. Tsintsadze's Five Pieces deliberately introduced ancient Georgian modal harmonies and traditional melodies into the classical concert repertoire.








Back to Onno van Rijen's Home Page