Reinhold Gliere - Concerto for Cello & Orchestra - Concerto for Coloratura Soprano & Orchestra - Wartime Music (1941-1945) Vol. 13 - Northern Flowers

Reinhold Gliere (born in Kiev on January 11 1875, died in Moscow on June 23, 1956) was born into the world of Tsarist Russia and grew up amidst the glorious accomplishments of Tchaikovsky and "The Five" who created a strong nationalistic language for Russian music. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Tchaikovsky's favorite pupil Taneyev (counterpoint) and with Arensky (harmony) and Ippolitov-Ivanov (composition), all composers whose work represented the fulsome richness of late romanticism with Slavic coloration, and in the case of Ippolitov-Ivanov, a strong interest in exoticism. Though Gliere lived beyond the middle of the 20th century, his music never really left the Russian romantic tradition. He worked on the grand scale producing music in the large forms, including three symphonies (the last, a program work on a Russian folk hero entitled Ilya Murometz, is of Mahlerian proportions, running over an hour and a half in a complete performance), ballets, operas, concertos, chamber works and also instrumental pieces. His best-known work (along with his Third Symphony "Ilya..") by far is a single number, the “Russian Sailors’ Dance,” from the 1927 ballet "The Red Poppy". Otherwise Gliere remains still a rather under-appreciated composer, for which there is no justification. 

Issuing these two concertos as part of Northern Flowers's wonderful "Wartime Music" seems an odd choice in a sense, although I love Gliere's music so I'm happy they did. Ok-so these two events, the war and Gliere’s existence, coincided. No doubt the composer experienced the vicissitudes of World War II in the day-to-day management of his life, but if a war intruded on any of his works, it was the Golden Horde of Batu Khan that the legendary Ilya Murometz fought. None of these observations about his wartime status intrude on the quality of his music, of course. At his best, Gliere created beautiful works that demonstrate a strong fusion of form and expressive content, where there is never any question whether a bridge could be improved upon, or a theme treated differently and to better effect. His music is instantly likable and in many cases lovable!  These two concertos are prime examples of this.

The Cello Concerto is a typical Gliere piece, firmly in the classic tradition but with some surprises. The first movement, Allegro, introduces the principal theme with the solo cello, and there are long unaccompanied sections where the cello trills freely. With the added strings comes the beautiful melody that gradually develops lyrically, followed a little later by the supporting theme introduced by an oboe. These grow in scale until a totally unexpected new orchestral melody suddenly arrives to leave us wondering where did it all come from. The second movement, Andante, fully displays the Russian character of the concerto, through the (deliberate?) allusion to the Polovtsian Dances from the opera "Prince Igor", composed by another of Gliere’s famous predecessors, Alexander Borodin (1833-1887). The melody is skillfully used as an underscore to the movement. It beautifully exposes its heartfelt melancholy, its atmospheric, nearly nocturnal characteristics, as suits a truly romantic work. The final movement, Allegro Vivace, is suitably the most vivacious of the three. It is almost cinematic in style, effortlessly taking the listener into a world of sound that could easily be translated into images of a virtuoso dancer executing a complex choreography. This is perhaps revealing of Gliere’s excellent understanding of ballet music and gives the concerto a final touch of elegance.

Gliere composed his "Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra" in 1943 and it is dedicated to Debhora Jakobwewna Pantofel-Netschezka. It was premiered in Moscow that year with the Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio under the direction of Orlov. In addition to the soprano soloist, the score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, three horns, timpani, triangle, glockenspiel, harp, and strings. A concerto for a vocal soloist singing wordlessly is extremely unusual. Generally speaking vocal music without words (vocalise) is intended as etudes for singers, study pieces designed to develop vocal agility, a smooth legato, and other technical elements, though rarely intended for performance before an audience. Still, there are a few pieces that have achieved wide popularity in which a singer has no words to project. The first movement of Heitor Villa-Lobos's "Bachianas brasileiras" No. 5 for eight cellos and soprano is one such work. Another, surely known to Gliere, was Rachmaninoff's "Vocalise". One of my favorites, although of a different nature, is RVW's "Flos Campi". What is unusual in this case is that Gliere has written an actual concerto (though a rather short one, in two movements) of this type. The first is an Andante, mostly dreamy in character, though with coloratura flourishes; the second is a waltz of progressively increasing brilliance. This is one of a number of works based on the folk culture of various nationalities embraced by the Soviet Union, including Ukrainian, as well as the peoples of the Transcaucasus and central Asia. Many of these works are based on folk tunes treated with a vivid imagination for orchestral color. These predilections matched well the requirements of the Soviet government for music accessible to the people, and Glière received the title People’s Artist of the USSR in 1938.

There is another wonderful version of Gliere's Coloratura concerto on an earlier Chandos disc, coupled with his Harp Concerto, and the Harp Concerto of Ginastera as well.

Enjoy!

-This is another Apple Lossless post (as always m4a, which can be lossy or lossless)

Part 1

Wartime_Music_Vol.13_Gliere(PT1)_Tzadik.zip


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Part 2

Wartime_Music_Vol.13_Gliere(PT2)_Tzadik.zip


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Yuri Vladimirovich Kochurov - "1941-1945 Wartime Music Vol. 11" - Macbeth Symphony for Large Orchestra - The Suvorov Overture - Solemn March - Heroic Aria for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra - Northern Flowers

Here's another interesting disc from Northern Flower's 1941-1945 "Wartime Music" series. I think it's safe to say that almost no one reading this will have any familiarity with Yuri Kochurov. And thus most of us would be hard-pressed to think of a single Kochurov composition (the poorly translated liner notes speak of his songs and vocal cycles set to verses by Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tyutchev, as well as his Petrarca's Sonnet for voice with organ as some of his his "most popular opuses").  

The four works on this somewhat brief disc seem to reflect Kochurov’s greatest strength and greatest failing; he is an extraordinary musical chameleon. Each of these works belong to a very different musical style and even aesthetic but Kochurov seems to be able to write with sincere conviction and no little skill in these differing idioms. More to the point each is graced with skillful orchestration and melodic/motivic memorability; much can be forgiven in return for a good tune. The key to this might well lie in his background in theatre and film with its inherent demands of being able to produce appropriate music for many different scenarios. 

The commissioning of incidental music for a 1940 production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth led to a score Kochurov developed over the ensuing eight years as his "Macbeth Symphony" which was premiered by Kurt Sanderling and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in December 1948. Several things about this work should be known straightaway-it is not a symphony even in the Domestica or Alpine sense but it is remarkably Straussian and as such an extended tone-poem. For sure there are thematic/character motifs that lend it a symphonic unity but the six linked but defined sections give it much more of a feel of say Also Sprach Zarathustra. The influence of Richard Strauss is pretty undigested much in the same manner as Bartok’s "Kossuth" or Szymanowski’s "Concert Overture" which represent early works for their respective composers before their mature music appeared. The thing that saves the work, and the others recorded here, is that Kochurov’s music remains memorable enough in its own right if resolutely unoriginal. There is nothing particularly subtle in the musical characterization but then it could be argued that the big broad strokes of the play; Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, killing King Duncan and the final death and destruction of Macbeth and his ambitions do not require the subtlest of nuance. The liner reproduces the extended program supplied by Kochurov for the premiere. Very curiously there is not a single reference in it to the witches or the supernatural, only "evil growing in Macbeth’s heart" and "dark forces". Is it too fanciful to suppose that there could be no mention of anything possibly linked to the supernatural/religion in the atheist Soviet Union? Yet if that was indeed the case it's hard to think of another Soviet work from this era so lush and frankly self-indulgent. Quite how it got past the censors is hard to imagine but we should be glad it did. The very opening with its surging writing, exultant horns and complex writing gives you an immediate sense of what will follow in the next half hour. As before in this series, the orchestra proves to be not of the first rank, with the upper strings sorely taxed and lacking the kind of tonal bloom and absolute unanimity of intonation that most have come to expect.  Mahler provides several musical reminiscences-just the occasional melodic/rhythmic motif that makes one think of his work. Harmonically this is at a huge remove from the more typical products of Wartime Russia featuring neither the harshly clashing harmonies of a young Prokofiev or the mainstream predictability of Khrennikov. The orchestration owes more to German models of the early 20th Century which is surprising given Kochurov’s training at the Leningrad Conservatory. It's beautifully orchestrated and so what if Death and Transfiguration seems close at hand?  The ensuing gently malicious scherzo representing the cankerous growth of evil in Macbeth is skillfully constructed. Kochurov again shows his virtuosity as an orchestrator with malevolently quiet muted brass and hobbling bass clarinet and characterful contra-bassoon. This builds to a powerful climax and leads straight into the next section which reprises Macbeth’s main theme this time revealed in all its confident glory.

  

The remaining works on the disc are more clearly functional yet they are all saved from the 'humdrum' by neat little touches of individuality by the composer. The "Suvorov Overture" refers to Alexander Suvorov who was one of the great Russian military commanders of the 18th Century. Apart from his skills as a soldier it can be imagined that his 'common touch' was something much celebrated in the Soviet era by word if not in deed. In this work Kochurov does not try to be specifically programmatic instead he uses the title to allow him to write what can only be described as a 'Classical Comedy Overture' in the same way that Prokofiev’s Symphony No.1 is 'Classical'. Again, it's difficult to think of another Soviet work with this genuine light-hearted feel. There seems to be no 'side' to the humur neither does it seems false or forced. This is the neoclassical world of Respighi or Grieg in Holberg-mode. Textures are light and clear with contrapuntal writing to the fore. Kochurov passes the musical material deftly around all the instruments of the orchestra in a genuinely charming way. The final peroration is a tad formulaic in its use of sequences and lets the rest of the work down somewhat.

With the "Solemn March" Kochurov wears another hat-this time it is the ceremonial march of Tchaikovsky. But thankfully it avoids the cliches of so many similar 'great occasion' Soviet marches. The orchestral brass enjoy their fanfares but again the string playing lacks real finesse. This is far more quirky than similar works; it is more jaunty than solemn. The fun is in the counter-melodies and how he orchestrates them. Even the last work, which is my favorite (with its daunting title "Heroic Aria") proves to be more impressive than one might think.  It suffers from a far inferior recording, and from a different engineer apparently. The orchestra sounds far more distant and harsher. In Olesya Petrova they have a young Russian mezzo-soprano whose voice combines the best of traditional Russian singing values, rich, resonant and vibrant. She has a fairly dreadful text to sing; "Leningrad troops are marching to do battle against evil invaders" is one of the more deathless couplets. But again Kochurov seems to have found a way of setting it that has the ring of sincerity. It should be no surprise that this occupies more of a predictable sound-world but it manages to feel more like an operatic aria than propaganda piece. Petrova sings it with conviction and the orchestration lifts it far above the run of the mill. There is a beautiful poignant but brief passage for two clarinets that alone justifies the worth of the whole work. 

The liner notes don't at all explain Kochurov’s early death in 1952 (the disc lists it as being 1951 but that is incorrect) at the age of just 44. It is easy to speculate that his work did not find favor among the establishment with all the implications that had for Soviet artists. The notes mention other scores for the theatre that include a Tristan and Isolde, Don Quixote and Boris Godunov...that would make for an intriguing disc! 

Enjoy!

Yuri_Kochurov_Wartime_Music_Vol._11_Tzadik.zip

http://www67.zippyshare.com/v/9ShNcD5P/file.html

Lev Konstantinovich Knipper-Violin Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 8 ("Wartime Music Volume 6", Northern Flowers)

This disc showcases Lev Konstantinovich Knipper's fantastic and lyrical Violin Concert No.1 (I'm not hesitant to call it a small masterpiece) and his Symphony No. 8. It is Volume 6 in NorthernFlower's "Wartime Music" 1941-1945 series; I believe the series is up to it's 20th volume as I write this. Enjoy!

Lev Konstantinovich Knipper was an initially self-taught pianist and composer who came of age in the era of "Russian Futurism." He was encouraged in his early efforts by his aunt, the famous Russian stage actress Olga Knipper-Chekhova. Knipper served for five years in the Red Army before undertaking formal training under Reinhold Glière at the Moscow Conservatory in 1921. During this time Knipper varied his interests by serving as a stage manager at the Moscow Art Theater. Knipper continued his studies in Berlin with Busoni's associate Philipp Jarnach in 1924.

With his matriculation, Knipper burst onto a Russian musical scene that was brimming with new ideas and experimentation. Knipper's early "futurist" music is tart, satirical, and edgy, betraying the influence of Western composers such as Hindemith. Leopold Stokowski took an interest in Knipper's Op. 1 suite, Legends of Plaster God (1924 - 1927), giving its American premiere in Philadelphia. Knipper's futurist-era music includes the ballet Satanella, Op. 4 (1924), the operas Candide, Op. 15 (1926 - 1927), and North Wind, Op. 25 (1930), and his First Symphony, Op. 13 (1927). North Wind, likely Knipper's masterwork, was also the piece that first got him into trouble with Soviet authorities. Scored in a light, expressionistic style, the opera contains long sections of speech-like, declamatory writing for the voice and a minimum of dramatic underscoring. At the time, this approach was regarded as suspiciously Western by the Soviet government, and Knipper "voluntarily" departed to Tajikistan to collect folk songs, "pledging to do better."

In the early 1930s, Knipper redeemed himself by introducing a type of "song-symphony" which incorporates professional and amateur choruses. This format was so limited that it was doomed to be nothing more than a fad, but it was conceived to appeal to Stalinist sympathies, and was highly successful in this regard. Knipper's Symphony No. 4 "To the Komsomol Fighters" (1934) contains the song "Meadowlands" which has become one of the primary Russian patriotic anthems, long outlasting in popularity both the symphony that introduced it and the regime for which it was created. With his Symphony No. 6 "To the Red Army" (1936) Knipper incorporated elements of his older, more aggressively modernist style, an attribute which hardly escaped the notice of the Soviet State. Knipper was roundly attacked, even by Shostakovich, who may have hoped to regain some ground with the authorities in doing do. Shostakovich frequently confronted Knipper on matters of political "rightness" at several points in their respective careers; this is a startling fact in view of their shared status as composers working within the repressive Soviet regime. Knipper was painfully aware of the situation and attempted to find a voice for it; in 1948 he wrote "we are asked to democratize music, to write more simply and intelligibly. Democratic musical language is not such a simple matter. New conceptions require new words. We cannot speak today in the language of Borodin or Tchaikovsky."

Lev Knipper composed 20 symphonies, 10 operas, concertante pieces for various instruments, including the Concertino-monologue (1962) for cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, film music, choral works, chamber music, and songs. He was a longtime member of the Union of Composers, once serving as its vice-president, and the Soviet State bestowed upon Knipper a number of honors. Gerald Abraham once characterized him as a "Soviet Mahler"; however, this did not save Knipper from being practically forgotten by the time of his death in 1974 at age 75. Since then, a groundswell of renewed interest has been growing, and his big tune "Meadowlands" was featured in the soundtrack of the hit film Cast Away (2000).

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