This is a Recording

This CD is part of a late-'90s series under the collective title Musica Non Grata ("Undesirable Music") featuring pieces drawn from the archives of the Russian Melodiya record label by composers who had variously been "threatened, vilified, reviled and reduced to silence or, at best, grudgingly tolerated" by the Soviet regime. It brings together two of the eight symphonies written by the Armenian composer Alfred "Avet" Terteryan (or Terterian). This wasn't an easy item to find, and I ended up paying £20 for a used copy via ebay earlier this year. Symphony No. 3 (1975) is written for a large symphony orchestra augmented by the duduk and zurna, (traditional Armenian woodwind instruments). It's cast in three movements, and peformed here by the Armenian SSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Khandjan. Terteryan was evidently partial to wide dynamic contrasts, alternating & juxtaposing judderingly loud percussion, strident woodwinds an...

Why do I have a bulky 12-LP box set of "Light Classical Music" occupying some of my limited shelf-space when I have no intention of listening to the music therein? Sentimental reasons explain it. Visiting my father one day he asked what music I was listening to & I replied that about half of it was classical in some form or another. He'd never acquired any taste for it, he said, whereupon a thought occurred to him and he retrieved this box from another room and handed it to me: it had been his mother's. I didn't imagine I'd end up with a keepsake of my paternal grandmother. It was surprising that anything of hers had survived some rather chaotic episodes in her house in the years following her death. Having said that, it had suffered considerable wear and tear: the box itself was broken, some of the inner sleeves were torn & stained, and one of the discs (no. 4) was in patently unplayable condition. Knowing it had been kept near a coal fire, and not fa...

The ten movements of Olivier Messiaen's epic 'Turangalîla Symphony' run to around 80 minutes' duration in all, so it's never going to fit on to a single LP. Here it occupies three sides of vinyl, with a fourth devoted to 'November Steps', a piece by Tōru Takemitsu, apparently given its debut recording on this 1968 RCA release. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra were joined on the former piece by the composer's wife Yvonne Loriod at the piano with her sister Jeanne playing the ondes Martenots. On the latter, Kinshi Tsuruta played the biwa and Katsuya Yokoyama the shakuhachi. Seiji Ozawa conducted. Extensive sleeve-notes written by Messiaen himself (translated by Louis Biancolli) explain the work's origins in an obsession with the story of Tristan and Isolde; its varied symbolism; its title (derived from two Sanskrit words); its overarching theme as being a "song of love, a hymn to joy" (of the mystical & transcendent sorts); its complex rhyt...

This 2006 box set's full title is simply a list of the six pieces contained within: Asrael | A Summer's Tale | The Ripening | Epilogue | Fairy Tale | Praga - these being the major orchestral works of the Czech violinist and composer Josef Suk (1874-1935). The performances collected here date from between 1985-89, and feature the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, with Václav Neumann conducting 'Asrael', 'The Ripening' and 'Epilogue', and Libor Pešek at the podium for the other three works. On 'Epilogue', the Prague Philharmonic Choir and three solo singers can also be heard. I'd first heard Suk's music on a Naxos CD I bought ca. 2001 on which 'A Summer's Tale' was the stand-out. I especially loved its second and third movements. Seeking to explore further, I acquired an album including both 'Asrael' and 'Fairy Tale', where it was the latter piece that particularly appealed to me. His later works like 'The Ripe...

Remarkably extensive though it is, the Discogs database doesn't contain everything, with its coverage of classical releases patchier than that of rock, pop & jazz ones. Had I continued to rely on the 'Random Item' button there, then I wouldn't have been in a position to write about this 2-CD Anniversary Edition album which brings together notable performances of half a dozen works by the Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke: as far as I can tell, no-one has added it there yet*. The album was released in 2020 on the Russian Melodiya label, intended to mark what would have been the composer's 85th birthday (but a year late for that). It's a handsome package with a very informative booklet in an unusual double-digipak which folds out into an L-shape. I bought it when it came out, being particularly interested to get a recording of his 'Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra' (1979), which I'd been listening to via YouTube. It's represented here by...

Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky is a pianist, composer and conductor originally from Russia and now resident in Switzerland. His compositions are characterised by a kind of minimalism that's neither quite like the styles of Glass & Reich nor the so-called "Holy Minimalists" among his Soviet-born contemporaries. To me his music seems distantly reminiscent of some of Michael Nyman's work. It makes use of repeated fragments of melody drawn from the classical and popular traditions, and often calls for amplified instrumentation. I first encountered his work on a CD called Pourquoi Je Suis Si Sentimental , as mentioned in passing here . Pura Cosa Mentale is a 2-CD album on the Belgian label Megadisc including five of his works. The first disc is dominated by a lengthy piece called 'Six États Intermediaires' which, a note adds, is "based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead". Its an orchestral opus, with, as its title implies, six movements. Notwithstandi...

On belatedly catching up with Twin Peaks: The Return a few years ago, in the middle of its very striking eighth episode where a slow-motion monochrome nuclear explosion is accompanied by the sound of harshly screeching strings, I recognised the music right away as Krzysztof Penderecki's 'Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima'. The 'Threnody' is among the pieces on this CD that I'd picked up in an anodyne small-town shopping-mall about twenty years ago. I'd been curious to hear it having previously read some reference to it (possibly by Lester Bangs) as an exemplary slice of horrible noise. I expected it to sound abrasive and discordant, but its expressive power caught me off-guard. It apparently took its composer by surprise too: beginning life as a something of an abstract piece, it was only when he first heard it performed that its "emotional charge" became apparent to him. The main part of this disc is devoted to Penderecki's 3rd Symphony,...

Opting to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on TV when I was ill with chicken-pox as a teenager wasn't the best choice, as the flashing imagery and discordant music only served to make me feel worse than I had before. If I thought about it at all, I may have supposed the more terrifying soundtrack cues had been composed specifically for the film. Not so: this was an unhappy early encounter with the music of György Ligeti. In 1999 a colleague was listening to something on a Discman-style personal stereo that provoked a variety of grimaces and, ultimately, a big smile. Upon my inquiring what it was, he lent me the CD - called Wien Modern - which included Ligeti's works 'Atmosphères' (one of the pieces used in 2001 ) and 'Lontano'. Startled and moved to similar facial contortions by what I heard, I would have bought a copy for myself had the album still been available. A couple of years later there came the first in a series of five CD releases collecting Ligeti's ...

I went through a phase, about eight years ago, when I downloaded (via less than fully legal means) a great quantity of classical music: so much of it, that I spent a full year just listening to it all, at the rate of an hour or two a day. One of the composers whose work caught my ear during that time was Bohislav Martinů, with pieces like his Nonets and the wonderful 'Fantasia for Theremin, Oboe, String Quartet and Piano' standing out in particular. Afterwards, trying to do the right thing, I began buying some of his music on CD, and, on a few occasions, was lucky enough to turn up an old LP of his work at a charity shop. The present disc, combining Martinů's 'Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra' with Richard Strauss's Oboe Concerto, I found at the Oxfam Books & Music shop in Cardiff. In Discogs I have my copy listed  as from the original 1963 pressing, but it could well be a later re-issue. The soloist is František Hanták, accompanied by the Brno State Ph...

I suppose this might count as a 'Greatest Hits' of Aram Khachaturian, featuring as it does four extracts apiece from his most succesful ballet scores Spartacus and Gayaneh . It's a 1971 re-issue of a 1962 performance by the Vienna Philharmonic, under the baton of the composer himself. The ballets themselves premiered in 1956 and 1942 respectively. It opens with the 'Adagio Of Spartacus And Phrygia', whose melody I'd known since early childhood from its being used as the main theme to the BBC TV drama The Onedin Line . The 'Sabre Dance' from Gayaneh which opens side B is scarcely less famous. I'd likewise encountered its melody in my early years thanks the the rock version by Dave Edmunds' band Love Sculpture. The other tracks are scarcely less arresting, with brash, up-front tunes throughout. The music is perhaps a Soviet equivalent to Hollywood movie soundtracks of the same era. I don't play the record often, but it is a joy, and I never ...

When I first moved to Karlskrona there were two branches of the Skivlagret record shop: the cooler one in the town centre and a blander one in an out-of-town mall in the same building as the Robin Hood supermarket. The latter location held a stock of budget Naxos classical releases, and it was thanks to these discs that I first got into the music of Shostakovich, and also, into the work of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. There are three pieces on the CD, all featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu: 'Cantus Arcticus', a so-called 'concerto for birds and orchestra', with the former represented by tape-recordings of birdsong made in northern Finland. This is an immediately-accessible and beautiful composition, somewhat reminiscent of Sibelius. Next is the striking 'Piano Concerto No. 1', with Laura Mikkola the soloist, which is predominantly melodic, but with piquant 'cluster' chords on the piano made by applying a ...

This is a '70s German quadrophonic pressing of a performance by the Orchestre de Paris of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Schéhérazade (op. 35, 1888). Bulgarian-born violinist Luben Yordanoff is the lead soloist, with renowned cellist Mstislav Rostropovich at the podium. 'Schéhérazade' is Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous work - in my view justifiably so, with strong melodic hooks and exquisite orchestration combined in a compelling whole. A piece of sugar-coated orientalism it may be, but it's altogether beguiling confection nevertheless.   This LP was among my early vinyl purchases: a sticker on the back of my copy suggests I paid 10 SEK (less than a pound) for it at one of Karlskrona's junk-shops about twenty years ago. The disc is well-worn with quite a bit of surface noise, but it still plays well enough. The delightful cover image is one that Marc Chagall made specifically for this album.

Mieczysław Weinberg is oftenest mentioned in connection with his great friend Dmitri Shostakovich. For some Weinberg was little more than his imitator; for others a figure unduly overlooked owing to his proximity to the great man. I'm in no position to contest the apparent consensus that Shostakovich was the better composer of the two, but at least a few of Weinberg's works are wonderful, memorable pieces that, for me, outshine the equivalent works by his more famous contemporary. These include his Piano Quintet and his Cello Concerto, the latter among the two works featured on the present CD. The Cello Concerto was composed in the late '40s but not given a performance until 1957, with the great Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist. It's a deeply emotive work, and one which very prominently features Jewish themes and influences: the anti-semitic climate of Stalin's last years at least partly accounting for the tardiness of its public debut. The other work on the CD ...

Between 2000 and 2012, the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica recorded a series of fascinating albums for the Nonesuch label. I bought six or seven of them and still have a few on my shelves now. Most of these CDs have a theme, and that of De Profundis ('out of the depths'), released in 2010, is, according to Kremer's own booklet notes, to do with composers crying 'out of the depths' with their music for a better world. Additionally, Kremer writes, he was thinking of the business of oil (extracted out if the depths of the earth) which is "used to sustain tyrannical regimes, be it in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Myanmar, or Russia". There is, moreover, a dedication to the erstwhile oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then in a Russian prison. Having said all that, hearing the pieces on the disc in innocence of the booklet notes, one would be hard-pressed, I think, to deduce a unifying theme from them. The two longest pieces in the album...

When the shops re-opened for a time in the summer of 2020, I picked up - somewhere in Chepstow - a 4 CD box set of music from the soundtracks of Alfred Hitchcock's films. I was spooked by Oskar Sala's surprisingly abrasive & avant-garde electronic score to The Birds ; I very much enjoyed Miklós Rósza's music for Spellbound ; but most of all I loved Bernard Herrmann's cues for North by Northwest (which, in places, put me oddly in mind of some of Philip Glass's symphonic works) and, of course, Vertigo . When the next lockdown came along, I treated myself to a vinyl copy of the Vertigo soundtrack (ordered via ebay) in the shape of the remastered pressing of it put out by Varèse Sarabande in 2019. Both the music and the packaging are wonderful, but the record itself wasn't in the very best of condition for a new LP, with some audible clicks and pops coming from it even when it was freshly unwrapped. I'm not altogether sure I've ever even watched the mo...

It took me years to figure out that, as a general rule, my preference was for chamber music over orchestral music; trios, quartets & quintets over concertos and symphonies. As with most general rules, however, there are exceptions, notably when it comes to the works of Jean Sibelius. The Finn wrote a good deal of undistiguished chamber and salon music, but, given a bigger band to play with, he could work wonders. I went through a Sibelius phase around 15-20 years ago, collecting several CDs of his music, and gaining an appreciation for such justly-popular pieces as the 'Karelia Suite' the 5th Symphony, and 'Tapiola'. The only Sibelius LP I currently have is this 1975 recording by the USSR Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra performing Symphones 3 & 5, with that man Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting. It was one of half a dozen classical albums I picked up at the Oxfam shop in Thornbury last autumn. I'd previously had another version of the 5th on vi...

There are many more famous and - by virtually all measures - objectively better 19th-century concertos than Giovanni Bottesini's 1853 'Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in B Minor', but this relatively obscure piece has brought me more pleasure than Beethoven's 'Emperor' piano concerto; or Brahms' for the violin; or Dvořák's for the cello, etc. There's something about the way he makes the lugubrious voice of the bass sing so sweetly that never fails to delight me. Part of the piece's charm for me, is its brevity - it clocks in at 16:13 on this recording. The first two movements have wonderful yearning melodies which aren't allowed to outstay their welcome, while the shorter third wraps things up in a brisk Allegro finalé. Also on this disc is Bottesini's later and longer F sharp minor concerto, a work I've never enjoyed as much as the B minor one. Rounding out the disc is a further charming piece: a 'Gran Duo Passione Amorosa...

This hybrid SACD brings together four pieces by the contemporary Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. I first heard his music on the radio, by way of a BBC Radio 3 'Proms' concert broadcast in the summer of 2015 which included a performance of 'Beast Sampler', the opening piece on the disc. Hillborg apparently characterises a symphony orchestra as a 'sound animal', and, in this work - a sort of collage of orchestral colours and textures - he conjures up a hair-raising succession of sonic creatures. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor Sakari Oramo bring them expertly to life. After the opening track's exuberance, the short piece that follows, 'O dessa ögon' is a model of frosty elegance, featuring Hannah Holgersson's soprano soaring ever higher over the RPSO's strings. I find I prefer those two pieces over the others. 'Cold Heat' is another showcase for Hillborg's orchestral prowess, but one that I enjoy a little...

Or, to give its full title, Barbirolli Conducts English String Music , the music in question being Edward Elgar's 'Introduction and Allegro for Strings' & 'Serenade in E minor'; and Ralph Vaughan-Williams' 'Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis' & 'Fantasia on "Greensleeves"'. It's a 1970 reissue of a recording made seven years earlier where Sir John Barbirolli conducted the Sinfonia of London. A stiffly formal note on the back cover warns that "this record is intended for use only on special sterophonic reproducers. If you are doubtful of the suitablity of your reproducer for playing this record, we recommend you to consult your record dealer." When I play this record on my stereophonic reproducer, it's nearly always just Side 2 - the one with the Vaughan-Williams pieces - that I put on. There are a few of Elgar's works I enjoy, but those included here have yet to grab me. On the other hand, Vaughan-William...

Of all the long novels I've managed to finish, 1Q84 might be the one I enjoyed the least. Despite that, I am much obliged to Murakami for his prominent mention of Leos Janáček's 'Sinfonietta' in the book's opening pages. Until reading about it there, I'd hitherto failed to pay due attention to the piece. Supposedly, Janáček intended the music to express "contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory," but, for me, its bold and slightly off-kilter fanfares conjure up a sense of otherwordliness in tune with the themes of Murakami's novel, so the novelist's referencing it there didn't strike me as gratuitious. Janáček, however, does much more with his twenty-odd minutes of music than Murakami manages with 900+ pages of prose. I have it in a 1971 recording from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. It's paired with an older performance of the same compos...