Label: REGIS 1310
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RUSSIAN VIOLIN CONCERTOS
NIKOLAI RAKOV (1908 – 1990): Violin Concerto No. 1
DMITRI KABALEVSKY (1904 – 1987): Violin Concerto in C major, Op. 48
VISSARION SHEBALIN (1902 – 1963): Violin Concerto, Op. 21

Andrew Hardy, violin (Guadagnini, Cremona 1793)

Symphony Orchestra of Russia/Veronika Dudarova
Nikolai Rakov: among his own pupils were Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Boris Tchaikovsky. The Soviet State Prize 1946 was awarded for his Violin Concerto No.1 – this brilliant-sounding work written when Soviet composers had to carry aloft the banner of heroism. Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto premiered in 1948; early that year, Stalin’s right hand man had given two warnings to ‘formalist’ composers: Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky, Khachaturian, Popov, Kabalevsky and Shebalin (only officials in the Composers’ Union were mentioned otherwise Rakov’s name would have been on the list ). Kabalevsky composed a decidedly optimistic work: the arpeggios after the cadenza are reminiscent of Mendelssohn’s Concerto, and the powerful conclusion invites applause. Shebalin proved to be a traditionalist in the best sense: his models were above all Glinka, Borodin and Taneyev. He was a very cultured and popular figure, of whom Shostakovich remarked: ‘He was a really splendid fellow. I was always charmed by his goodness, his honesty and the unusual tenacity with which he stood by his principles’. – Per Skans

Label: REGIS 4011
Our Price: $39.00
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ARTISTS: Kathleen Ferrier, soprano. 4 CD SET

Label: REGIS 9102
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JAPANESE LOVE SONGS MASAKAZU NATSUDA (*1968): Two Poems by Ryokan (2005) TOSHIO HOSOKAWA (*1955): Three Love Songs (2004) AKIRA IFUKUBE (1914 – 2006): Eclogues after Epos among Ainu Races (1956) FUMINORI TANADA (*1961): Duo for mezzo-soprano and soprano saxophone (2006) RYO NODA (*1948): Improvisation 1 (1971-73) ICHIRO NODAIRA (*1953): Dashu no sho (2003) HACENE LARBI (*1956): Matsukaze (2006) BERTRAND DUBEDOUT (*1958): Ça va commencer ça commence (2004) SHIMAZAKI TOSON (1872 – 1943): Kimi ga kokoro wa (recitation) Marie Kobayashi, mezzo-soprano; Claude Delangle, saxophone; Jean Geoffroy, percussion To quote the liner notes, this unusual disc is a kind of love song ‘from and for Japan, the eternal, and eternally fascinating – a country that reconciles every opposite in arts which stretch across millennia, a volcanic comma placed as a breathing space before the Pacific…‘ The acclaimed saxophone player Claude Delangle has long been intrigued by Japan, as demonstrated already ten years ago with the disc ‘The Japanese Saxophone’ (BIS-CD-890). From that disc we recognize a number of composers (Masakazu Natsuda, Toshio Hosokawa, Fuminori Tanada, Ichiro Nodaira) as well as the percussionist Jean Geoffroy, a longstanding collaborator of Delangle‘s. Unlike the previous, all-Japanese disc, the present program includes works by two French composers, Bertrand Dubedout and Hacène Larbi, who have also become fascinated by the enigma of Japan. Apart from Ryo Noda‘s Improvisation I for solo saxophone, the program consists of various combinations of voice, saxophone and percussion. By incorporating vocal works, a further dimension has also been added: the poems used by the various composers span a millennium – from the three poems by court-lady Izumi Shikibu (born c. 976) used in Hosokawa’s Three Love Songs, to a text by Mikiro Sasaki (b.1947) – and are the fruits of highly different environments: from the imperial court of classical Japan to the thought worlds of Zen monks and the Ainu aboriginal tribe respectively. Mezzo-soprano Marie Kobayashi applies her expertise in contemporary music and her interpretative gifts to this universe of thoughts and feelings, closing the program with an atmospheric recitation of a poem of unrequited love by Shimazaki Toson, one of the great figures in Japanese 20th century literature.