Skip to main content

Georgy Sviridov

Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov was a Soviet-era Russian composer, probably best-known internationally for his choral and other vocal works: cantatas, oratorios, hymns. etc.. Russians of a certain age will remember him for his piece Time, Forward! part of which was used as the theme for the TV evening news broadcast «Время». As well as a substantial corpus of choruses, film scores & the like, he also produced some chamber music, which is the focus of the present CD.

Sviridov had studied with Shostakovich, nine years his senior, with the older man's influence strongly evident on the pieces included here. Sviridov's 'Piano Trio', written in 1945 and revised ten years later, is, at times, very reminiscent of Shostakovich's 2nd Trio written the year before: such in the piano chords in the agitated Scherzo second movement. Elsewhere (so Iossif Rajskin's booklet notes inform me), Sviridov was more broadly inspired by the Russian tradition of elegaic music for piano trio in general. The piece was a success, and earned Sviridov a Stalin Prize the following year.

On the same composer's 'Piano Quintet', the Beethoven Trio Bonn (Jinsang Lee, piano; Mikhail Ovrutsky, violin; Grigory Alumyan, cello) were joined by violinist Artur Chermonov and violist Vladimir Babeshko. It was likewise composed in '45, and shares in the Trio's post-war blend of trauma and euphoria. Again there are some Shostakovichian moments, notably in its fiery finalé. The Quintet is also enjoyable, if a tad less so than the Trio. It's hard to believe it had to wait until this album's release in 2017 for its first-ever recording. 

This very engaging, wonderfully-played, well-recorded disc is rounded out by one further short piece, an arrangement of another of Sviridov's soundrack cues which found widespread standalone popularity, namely his: '"Romance" from "The Snowstorm: musical illustrations after a novella by A. Pushkin, for Orchestra."'

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Wrapped Up

Here's another of the compilation cassettes I bought this summer, having taken home a Denon twin-deck hi-fi cassette player from the local charity shop. All Wrapped Up is a 1983 compilation of singles by The Undertones, with Side One filled with A-sides, and B-sides on Side Two. A cassette must be the least desirable medium for such an arrangement, with a long rewind required if one just wants to hear the hits repeatedly. The Undertones were unapologetically provincial and anti-fashionable, with their songs sharply-written slices of life that pointedly avoided any mention of politics, or of the then-continuing violence in their native Derry. My favourite tracks are the obvious choices: 'Teenage Kicks', 'Jimmy Jimmy', 'Here Comes the Summer', 'My Perfect Cousin' & 'Wednesday Week'. Their later singles showed increased sophistication but lack the some of the straightforward charm of their earlier work. The B-sides, not unexpectedly, are mo...
Post a Comment
Read more

In Heat

Having acquired the soubriquet "the walrus of love", Barry White thereafter became something of a figure of fun, something that misled me (and presumably others) into disregarding his music. Only within the last few years have I begun to pay it more attention. After picking up a copy of his '74 album Can't Get Enough last summer, which I loved, I sought out some of the music by his protegés Love Unlimited. From a Discogs seller I ordered well-used copies of Under the Influence of... ('73) and In Heat ('74) for only £6.25. The only unappealing thing about In Heat is its awful title. The songs and the singing are strong; the arrangements rich & warmly enveloping. As one would expect from White, the thematic focus is firmly fixed on amatory matters. The opening number 'Move Me No Mountain' (the only one on the record not written by White) offers a refreshing rebuttal to the kind of lyrical hyperbole in songs like 'Ain't No Mountain High E...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bananas Are Not Created Equal

I knew Jay Berliner's name from his contributions to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady , so when I saw this curiously-titled LP at the local charity shop I was intrigued, and bought it even though I had no idea what kind of music it might contain. This was after the days when one could still buy records there for a pound apiece, but I don't think I paid more than a fiver for it. The music turned out to be an all-instrumental blend of funk, soul & jazz. Berliner's virtuoso lead guitar is only one of many attractions here. The band of first-rate session musicians behind him are all uniformly excellent too, and, crucially, sound like they're having a blast. Cornell Dupree's supporting guitar work, while less showy than Berliner's, is beautifully-judged, and the rhythm section is terrific. Arranger/conductor Wade Marcus was no slouch either, judging from the way everything comes together. Two of the funk...
Post a Comment
Read more