Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099403825
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: SHCHEDRIN
Description
Rodion Konstaninovich Shchedrin (b.1932) Carmen Suite Concerto No.1 for Orchestra: Naughty Limericks (Ozornïye chastushki) Rodion Shchedrin, born in Moscow in 1932 and still living there, was arguably the most successful and officially accepted Soviet composer of his generation. He started piano lessons at a very early age and his subsequent musical training and interests were encouraged by parents who were largely musical in their own backgrounds. Having completed his studies at the Moscow Conservatory in 1955, he continued as a piano pupil of Yakov Fliyer and in composition as a pupil of Yuri Shaporin. His earliest compositions are characterized by elements that continue into his maturity, folk melodies from the various republics of the former Soviet Union and the chastushka, short but sometimes vulgar, clean, emotional or cynical, but always happy, 'mass songs', which, although rarely incorporated into serious music before this time, became a characteristic of Shchedrin's major scores, yet were already evident in his most successful early works, the Piano Concerto No.1 of 1954 and the ballet Konek-Gorbunok (The Little Hump-Backed Horse). In addition to his large-scale orchestral works, symphonies and concertos for orchestra, piano concertos, vocal and choral works, instrumental and chamber works, Shchedrin is best known for his for the theatre, the 1976 opera Dead Souls and the ballets Carmen Suite, written in 1967, Anna Karenina, written in 1972 and The Seagull of 1980, all first performed at the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow. The one-act ballet Carmen Suite, choreographed by Alberto Alonso, chief ballet-master of the National Ballet of Cuba, was first performed by the Bolshoy Ballet at the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow in 1967, with Marya Plisetskaya in the leading rôle. It was first presented in the United States by the same forces at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1974. This was the first ballet Shchedrin wrote specifically for his wife, then prima ballerina of the Bolshoy. The Suite, scored for the unique combination of a large body of strings and the widest possible range of percussion instruments, handled simultaneously by five players, is divided into thirteen movements. The original score by Georges Bizet is regarded by many as perhaps the most perfect creation of its kind in the operatic repertoire, largely because of its highly concentrated yet economical dramatic structure and the simple fact that one is usually left with the impression that whichever rôle is being presented at a particular moment the human voice is never at odds with any continuing activity. In other words, the aural balance between the principal vocal rôles and the orchestral forces allows the solo voice to penetrate more clearly and with greater virtuosity than is the case in many operatic works. The 'transcription' maintains the musical image of Carmen, as created by Bizet, incorporating the wealth of thematic material by which the o
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
