Lesser known Russian/Soviet composers

[Drasko]

I listened to many samples today of russian composers, the ones I like and want to investigate further are:
Lourie, Kabalevsky, Markevitch, Roslavets, Mossolov, Polovinkin, Protopopov, Denisov, and Schnittke.

Here's something for start:

Arthur Lourie - A Little Chamber Music - Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie
http://www.mediafire.com/?gxcxn4yb8nx

Alexander Mosolov - Iron Foundry - Los Angeles Philharmonic / Salonen
http://www.mediafire.com/?usyzwfg7b8t

Lourie was really a chameleon, don't know how many styles he changed throughout his career, from qiute radical avant-garde all the way to neo baroque. A Little Chamber Music is from his neoclassical period.

For Igor Markevitch you're stuck with nicely comprehensive but not that brilliantly played Marco Polo cycle. Try volumes with Icare and earlier L'Envol d'Icare, they make for nice comparison.

For Roslavets there is bit more choice, beyond various piano antologies including some of his pieces there are two Hyperion discs, Hamelin's and one with orchestral music (neither of which I heard).

Since Melodiya/BMG Musica non Grata series are insanely difficult to find, Mossolov other than piano music which is relatively well represented will prove a problem finding.

Even more for Protopopov and Polovinkin, other than their inclusion in two discs of piano anthology Soviet Avant-Garde by Steffen Schleiermacher on Hat Hut there is nothing that I know of.

I'm not that familiar with Denisov, and Schnittke is fairly easy to sample (don't miss the Piano Quintet)
   

[vandermolen]

Is this Svetlanov conducting?

No (Sviridov CD), it is conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev.

[Henk]

Here's something for start:

Arthur Lourie - A Little Chamber Music - Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie
http://www.mediafire.com/?gxcxn4yb8nx

Alexander Mosolov - Iron Foundry - Los Angeles Philharmonic / Salonen
http://www.mediafire.com/?usyzwfg7b8t

Lourie was really a chameleon, don't know how many styles he changed throughout his career, from qiute radical avant-garde all the way to neo baroque. A Little Chamber Music is from his neoclassical period.

For Igor Markevitch you're stuck with nicely comprehensive but not that brilliantly played Marco Polo cycle. Try volumes with Icare and earlier L'Envol d'Icare, they make for nice comparison.

For Roslavets there is bit more choice, beyond various piano antologies including some of his pieces there are two Hyperion discs, Hamelin's and one with orchestral music (neither of which I heard).

Since Melodiya/BMG Musica non Grata series are insanely difficult to find, Mossolov other than piano music which is relatively well represented will prove a problem finding.

Even more for Protopopov and Polovinkin, other than their inclusion in two discs of piano anthology Soviet Avant-Garde by Steffen Schleiermacher on Hat Hut there is nothing that I know of.

I'm not that familiar with Denisov, and Schnittke is fairly easy to sample (don't miss the Piano Quintet)
   

I've heard the Schleiermacher, which was my introduction of many of them. Unfortunately it's OOP.
Downloading now. Thanks for uploading.

[The new erato]

Re Sviridov - on the september release lists:



SVIRIDOV, GEORGY Small Tryptich, It is Snowing, Poem for Sergei Esenin. Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra / Vladimir Fedoseyev. Vista Vera

[Dundonnell]

Vista Vera? That's a completely new name to me! A label I had never heard of.

[The new erato]

A label I had never heard of.

Ditto. They seem to have a few September releases of interesting stuff, check mdt.co.uk September releases.

[vandermolen]

Vista Vera? That's a completely new name to me! A label I had never heard of.

Me too. Looks v interesting. Thanks for info.

[violinconcerto]

I recently received a recording of the violin concerto by Tolia Nikiprowetzky (1916-1997). He was born is Russia, but thats nearly all I could find out about him. Anyone know more about him?

[pjme]

Tolia Nikiprowetsky was born in 1916 in Feodosia but lived and studied in France he became a French citizen.
Studies with : René Leibowitz and PLé-Caussade.
He worked for Radio Maroc and became (still is) a respected specialist on traditional African music.

He went through a "modal" and a "serial" period, did some research on electro-acoustics . His late works are written in a "freely atonal" style.
Claude Rostand mentiones in his Dictionaire de la musique contemporaine ( 1970) : a Symphonietta, a symphony "Logos 5",an large orchestral work "Homage à Gaudi" ( which I must have on an old LP - ORTF), choral & vocal works : Numina sacra, les Chants de la fille seule, les Noces d'Ombre etcv. A pianosonata, a string quartet and Etudes for piano.

He died in 1997.

Peter


Books :on Ebay /second hand ...
NIKIPROWETZKY, TOLIA, SAMUEL ENO BELINGA, GISELE BINON, MONIQUE BRANDILY, A. ESSYAD, ANDRE FRANCIS, PAUL MERCIER, MARIA ISAURA PEREIRA DE QUEIROZ, AMNON SHILOAH, BERNARD VERNIER, KHALIL ZAMITI & HUGO ZEMP. LA MUSIQUE DANS LA VIE: L'AFRIQUE, SES PROLONGEMENTS, SES VOISINS
Paris, Office De Cooperation Radiophonique (OCORA) & Editions R. Nagy., 1967, First Edition. Pictorial Wrappers, 8vo, 297pp, 11 b&w illustrations. Text in French. This is an anthology of scholarly essays on various aspects of the traditional music of the African continent. A presentable copy showing light wear and handling as well as some mild cracking of the wrappers at the spine.. Good +.

[Ten thumbs]

On 27th January this year the American Symphony Orchestra under the ever-enterprising Leon Botstein was scheduled to play Vladimir Shcherbachev's Symphony No.2(1922-26) , a work described by the British expert on Russian music David Fanning as "moumental apocalyptic". Can't find a review of the concert online.

Shcherbachev(1889-1952) was a pupil of Steinberg and Liadov, wrote 5 symphonies, taught at the Leningrad Conservatory and admired Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk'. Absolutely nothing by him appears to be on disc but if Botstein has taken the trouble to learn the work it must have something going for it

I am interested to see this name because a while ago I made an enquiry regarding Nicolai Shcherbachyov(1853 - ?). I wonder whether the two are related. I have since discovered on the back of my copy of Scriabin's 2 Impromptus Op. 12 in Belaïeff's edition (1897) a list of this composers piano works from Op8 to Op42. However, he is here spelt 'Stcherbatcheff' Spelling may be one reason finding information is so difficult!
Here are some other composers from Feofanov's edition of Russian composers from the 19th and early 20th centuries:
Achilles Alfaraky (1846-1919)
Yevgeny Alenev (1864-1902)
Arseny Koreshchenko (1870-1921)
Vasily Sapellnikov (1867-1941)
Joseph Vitol (1863-1948)
Feliks Blumenfeld (1863-1931)
Sergey Bortkevich (1877-1952)
Aleksandr Ilyinsky (1859-1920)
Boris Karagichev (1869-1946)
Sergey Lyapunov (1859-1924)
Genary Korganov (1858-1890)
Genrikh Pachulski (1857(9?)-1921)
Vladimir Rebikov (1866-1920)

Quite a bit of scope for research here.

[violinconcerto]

Tolia Nikiprowetsky was born in 1916 in Feodosia but lived and studied in France he became a French citizen.
Studies with : René Leibowitz and PLé-Caussade.
He worked for Radio Maroc and became (still is) a respected specialist on traditional African music.

He went through a "modal" and a "serial" period, did some research on electro-acoustics . His late works are written in a "freely atonal" style.
Claude Rostand mentiones in his Dictionaire de la musique contemporaine ( 1970) : a Symphonietta, a symphony "Logos 5",an large orchestral work "Homage à Gaudi" ( which I must have on an old LP - ORTF), choral & vocal works : Numina sacra, les Chants de la fille seule, les Noces d'Ombre etcv. A pianosonata, a string quartet and Etudes for piano.

He died in 1997.

Peter

Hello Peter,

thanks a lot for the additional information on Tolia Nikiprowetzky!

[Dundonnell]

Never heard any Svirdov Always wanted to sample him

Btw what's the weather like in Norway just now? Only a week until I head to Stockholm and ten days till I fly from there to Tromso
Am definitely going to make it to Bleik in Andoya Have been looking at photos on Google Earth. Looks fantastic

Photos of Bleik for you erato! It was a glorious day when I visited Andoya Rather more cloudy in Langoya but a wonderful holiday

[The new erato]

Thank you!  Ah, memories.....

[Drasko]

This could be interesting. Only thing I ever heard from Deshevov is this short percussive, repetitive, motoric piano piece titled Rails.

http://www.mdt.co.uk/MDTSite/product/NR_September08/101323.htm

official trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25LzcsA6vPo

[Dundonnell]

Naxos is advertising an October release of Kara Karayev's 3rd Symphony coupled with two shorter orchestral tone poems-

http://www.naxos.com/upcomingreleases.asp

That should be interesting Karayev was from Azerbaijan and a pupil of Shostakovich. His third symphony is quoted as an "artistically successful blend of tonal and twelve-note styles". There is a useful website devoted to Karayev from the indefatigable Onno van Rijen -

http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/karaev.htm

[Drasko]

One little-known Russian composer I find strangely fascinating is Alexei Stanchinsky.....

New mostly Stanchinsky disc is coming out from Melodiya, some piano music and first time ever I think, a Piano Trio:



Michael Glinka
1 Variations on a Theme of Mozart 4.18
2 Nocturne “La Séparation” 4.13
3 Skylark (trans. by M.Balakirev) 4.52

Alexei Stanchinsky
4 Piano Sonata in E flat minor (1906) 9.00

Twelve Sketches for Piano, Op.1
5 №1 – Moderato, in C minor 1.01
6 №2 – Presto, in G minor g-moll 0.35
7 №3 – Vivace, in D major 0.32
8 №4 – Lento cantabile, in E minor 2.06
9 №5 – Allegro, in A flat major 0.46
10 №6 – Andante epico, in D minor 2.37
11 №7 – Adagio teneramente, in C flat major 2.28
12 №8 – Molto vivace, in G sharp minor 0.54
13 №9 – Largamente, in D minor 2.29
14 №10 – Con moto, in A major 0.48
15 №11 – Allegro con spirito, in F sharp minor 0.45
16 №12 – Presto assai, in C major 0.59

Three Preludes for Piano (1907)
17 Prelude No.1 in C sharp minor. Lento 2.13
18 Prelude No.2 in D major. Con moto 0.46
19 Prelude No.3 in E flat minor. Adagio 2.27
20 Prelude in the Lydian Mode (1908) 4.55
21 Etude in G minor (1907) 2.31
22 Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello (1910) 11.05

Total playing time: 62.31
Alexander Malkus, piano
Grigory Feigin, violin (22)
Valentin Feigin, cello (22)
Recorded in 2001 (1–3), 1988 (4–22).
Catalogue number: MEL CD 10 01385

It is not by accident that the piano compositions by Michael Ivanovich Glinka and Alexei Vladimirovich Stanchinsky, two composers who were quite distant from each other in terms of time and style, are recorded onto one compact disc. The connection between them seems to mark the boundaries of the time span for the Russian piano school of the 19th century, a century which, according to many, stretched as far ahead as 1914. That year marked the tragic death of Stanchinsky and the beginning of World War I, and with it of the new art of Russia and the whole world. No less remarkable is the circumstance of the two composers having so much in common in the inner spirit of their music, despite the immense difference of moods in it. Glinka’s music is similar to Pushkin’s verses: it is remarkably harmonious and sophisticatedly complex, its texture does not have anything redundant and its language is accessible to each and everyone. The music of Stanchinsky resembles the verse of the Russian symbolist poets; its language is vague and the poetical technique is on the verge of intricacy. Nonetheless, it also does not have anything redundant. And this lack of “redundancy” becomes a crucial feature both for Pushkin and for Glinka. The spirit of “pure” music, free from any exigencies, breathes in their music the way it wants to.
As is well-known, Glinka was the pupil of the famous John Field and in a famous spot in his “Memoirs” presented a vindication of his teacher, criticizing Liszt. “Neither I nor any other sincere admirer of the art of music would ever agree with the opinion of Liszt, who has once declared to me that Field played in a weak manner (endormi); no, Field’s performance was frequently bold, capricious and varied, but he did not distort his art with charlatanry and did not chop cutlets with his fingers the way most of the latest fashionable pianists do”. Glinka’s music in the virtuosic transcriptions of Liszt, Balakirev and Lyadov present the appearance to us as if it is dressed in a fancy concert suit, which does not fit its wearer in size. It is much more suited to the dressing gown with the hood from the composer’s celebrated portrait. Glinka’s “chamber” manner with its highlighted attention to concise articulation of each sound (Glinka’s music, similarly to Mozart’s, has “few notes”, but how exceptionally hard it is for some pianists who are able to tackle the most virtuosic passages by Liszt and Rubinstein to acquiesce their meaning), turned out to be long forgotten in Russia, which has been left for half a century under the dazzling spell of the Rubinstein brothers, who were, in essence, virtuosi of the Liszt school. Only at the very beginning of the 20th century with the dusk of Romanticism this tendency received an unexpected continuation in the music of Scriabin. The academician Assafiev, who perceived very subtly the tendencies of his time, wrote about this phenomenon as follows: “But let us say, for example, an exceptional, individual phenomenon – … namely, the pianist Scriabin – does he not evoke in our memories by some of his musical traits Glinka’s aesthetics of piano playing and his remark about John Field?”.
Alexei Stanchinsky was born on March 9 (21) 1888 in the village Obolsunovo, near Teikovo (presently, the Ivanovo region) into the family of an engineer. Along with many other young composers of his generation (including his colleague, Anatoly Alexandrov, who was born on the same year) he regarded Scriabin as his first idol, albeit, fortunately, not his sole one. Having moved to Moscow in 1904 Stanchinsky became a pupil of Sergei Taneyev, whose aesthetical positions were extremely opposed to Scriabin’s. A creator of a system of counterpoint, which was the only one of its kind, an astute specialist in the counterpoint from all the styles of the history of music, himself a virtuosic contrapuntal master, Taneyev instilled into the youth a love towards a fancy performance of melodies, which oppose with and combine with each other in the most diverse variations. It is not by chance, therefore, that we are able to find in Stanchinsky’s oeuvres numerous examples of canons and fugues. However, the harmonic foundation in these works comprises a bold musical language, opened by Scriabin for numerous generations ahead, lying beyond the limitations of customary diatonic intervals of the harmonic series. The few published compositions by Stanchinsky aroused a real sensation within the musical circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg. A rare kind of precision and elaboration of each phrase and each separate sound, forming phantomlike contrapuntal embroidery (these features were brought to life by the contrapuntal technique itself, which does not tolerate the question of “you could do it this way or that way”) is what distinguished the music of this newly emerged composer from the musical products of the numerous epigones of Scriabin. He was talked of as a new genius… but it all unexpectedly came to a close. The twenty-six year old composer drowned on September 20 in a small river, Balonovka, not far from Novospassky, the estate where Michael Glinka was born 110 years prior to that. Novospassky is where Stanchinsky is buried. The cyclical line, reaching far away from the center – Balakirev, Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Lyapunov, was closed unexpectedly, in a mystical fashion, in the Smolensk region.
Unfortunately, the piano compositions of Glinka and Stanchinsky, presently, do not appear frequently in performance in the big concert halls. The necessity of listening attentively and sharing the intimate emotional feeling dictates quite different forms of realization for them – among small-scale audiences in small concert halls. Of course, the performer must also posses those qualities which in our times are quite rare: the ability to listen attentively to his own instrument and to control each note, so that the result would be, to use John Field’s expression in regards to Glinka’s music, “strong, delicate and happy playing”. Alexander Malkus, and ardent promoter of Stanchinsky’s music, belongs to particularly this category of musician, which is so rare in our times. When listening to his performance on this compact disc one becomes permeated with the remarkable phenomenon of the “small-scale” chamber piano style of playing, which frequently presents a greater amount of an inner emotional experience than the performances of “stars” in orchestras in large halls.

[The new erato]

Anybody tried the Sviridov on Vista Vera?

[Dundonnell]

Anybody tried the Sviridov on Vista Vera?

Ordered it from MDT but they said it was out of stock at their suppliers. Ordered it from Europadisc but no word so far

[lukeottevanger]

Don't know how I can have missed this fascinating thread for so long, but here's a link to Sviridov's most famous piece of music, information here. The wiki page linked to describes this piece as 'the most recognisable music piece of the Soviet era. It became a sort of calling card of the Soviet Union. For a long time it was used as the signature tune of Vremya, the TV news program on USSR Central Television and Russian Channel One'

So I assume many here will have heard it already. Nevertheless, it's a pretty powerful if not exactly subtle piece!

Vremja, Vpered

[The new erato]

I've noticed advance information of a Teldec disc with Roslavets piano trios by the trio Fontenay soon to be released, but have no further information.

After some research: This may be an Apex rerelease of an older OOP fullprice disc.