Here are three tunefully Russian violin concertos from the 1940s.
The Rakov’s undulating topography is sweetly intoned by Hardy who plays a Cremona Guadagnini of 1793. It’s a romantic work steeping lightly between the worlds of Glazunov’s lissome concerto and something very close to Hollywood. There’s a lush and lissome autumnal Andante after the 14 minute Allegro first movement. This is followed by a flashing blade of a finale which is pointedly thrust forward, turned, swung and parried by Hardy, Dudarova and her orchestra. There’s a touch of Prokofuiev’s First Violin Concerto about this engaging movement.
Rakov was a pupil of Gliere. He became a leading member of the Moscow Conservatoire staff and taught Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Elena Firsova, Boris Tchaikovsky and Karen Khachaturian (the nephew of Aram). His works include three symphonies, two piano concertos and two violin concertos.
We are on more familiar soil with the Kabalevsky concerto which is in fact his only one for violin. It is one of a trilogy of concertos for Soviet Youth. The others are Cello Concerto No. 1 (1949) and the Third Piano Concerto (1953) which was premiered by the 14 year old Vladimir Ashkenazy. It is positive, fluent, exciting and registers its emotional message without evasion. Like the Rakov it has a dreamy central movement before diving into a playfulVivace giocoso with sparkling Cossack rhythms and considerable unsubtle brilliance.
Vissarion Shebalin was a pupil of Miaskovsky and became director of the Moscow Conservatory (1942-1948). His Violin Concerto is a more nuanced work than the other two. It deals in half-lights, tragedy, protest, brutality and fury. No wonder he attracted official criticism. He was far from being an ecstatic but he was evidently a free-thinker whose freed thoughts turned to gloom and found satisfaction in the expression of the ascent into sunlight. Towards the end of the first movement the music takes on a scorching redolence of Shostakovich. The middle movement is no dreamy pre-echo of the Rakov or Kabalevsky. Shebalin calls up a meditation on beauty in some lightless kingdom. After two such movements the composer turns a more optimistic page for the Rondo finale with what you might think of as a playful synthesis of the Glazunov and the Miaskovsky concertos.
Three fascinating works. The Rakov and Kabalevsky have more in common with each other than with the Shebalin. All of these works are ones you should really get to know if you enjoy the more famous concertos by Prokofiev and Miaskovsky.
http://www52.zippyshare.com/v/20888402/file.html
http://www52.zippyshare.com/v/20888402/file.html
4 comments:
You are a Tzadik INDEED I had abit of a problem extracting some of the files,but I think I managed to fix them I just managed to listen to the beautiful Tabakova!I wish I could look into her eyes to see where this beautiful music is coming from.As to Rosner I will comment after I listen to him.one more Q,why only 256? All the best from jerusalem
Ha. Well I'm not exactly the Baal Shem Tov, but ok I'll take it ;D Sorry to hear you had any probs, m4a is considered superior to mp3, it' uses a newer codec and thus can offer 320 like sonics @ 256. However-I meant to post in 320, and I just changed the iTunes prefs to do so. I don't like iTunes that much, but on a mac there isn't anything else that I like that much (although there are a few lossless apps that are good)
Apple lossless is good (wav,aiff...) but thus far I don't bother making such files even for myself. I'll d/l them occasionally but that's all. Happy you enjoyed the Tabakova, she's lovely all around. Rosner's music is very important to me, his works always affect me so very much that I'm practically davening ;) -He wrote an interesting piece based on Gematria, indeed it's also the title! -Regards
Hello.
This file in http://www52.zippyshare.com/v/20888402/file.html it's fine but the music files are lossy in the spectrum reading. It is very good music in a not very good music format but good enough for our ears. Thanks
Okey dokey
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