Skorulskyi - piano concerto score

[Christopher]

A friend of mine who shares my curiosity about music from Ukraine and other ex-Soviet republics has retrieved from the Vernadsky National Library in Kyiv the score of the piano concerto of Myhaylo Skorulskyi (1887-1950). He found it after being directed there by the composer's grand-daughter.

It is here - https://www.mediafire.com/file/f0la266yycnrrpy/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B8%CC%86+-+%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82+%D0%B4%D0%BB%D1%8F+%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%96%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE+%D0%B7+%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BA%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.pdf



Apparently the score hadn't been touched in decades.  According to my friend - Volodymyr Vynnytsky (http://glierinstitute.org/ukr/famous-musicians/006.html) played the piece at a Skorulskyi 100th anniversary concert, which was probably in 1987.  He is said to live in America.   And reportedly a conductor by the name of Kurt Adler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Adler) took the piece on tour around Europe with the Zhytomyr orchestra where the piece met with some success. 

I'm afraid I can't read music in a way that I can hear the music in my head, so if it's not in the (late)-romantic style required here I will remove it and apologise.  But I find his other work which has been recorded (principally the ballet Song of the Forest, posted on UC) highly melodic and late-romantic in style.

This document has the score in the format of solo piano part + orchestral part in a version for piano (I am sure there's a better way of phrasing that!).  My friend is hoping to obtain the full score for all parts in due course.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I would like to view this score but when I download it I cannot open it. I get a message saying that the file is corrupted, so I cannot open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader nor with Edge PDF, nor can I convert it to Fox PDF, for the same reason. Can you help me please?

[Christopher]

I changed the link - try again...

[Gareth Vaughan]

That's better. Thank you, Christopher.

[Christopher]

Not at all Gareth and sorry for the inconvenience. I look forward to hearing your thoughts - like I say - I can read music but not hear it in my head! So must rely on the assessments of others until such time as it ever gets recorded.

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is very attractive music, in the Romantic mould. Thank you for allowing me to get acquainted with it. I would love to see the full score - if and when your friend manages to obtain a copy.

[Christopher]

This is very attractive music, in the Romantic mould. Thank you for allowing me to get acquainted with it. I would love to see the full score - if and when your friend manages to obtain a copy.

Gareth - thanks for your comments and feedback, it's much appreciated.  Do you think it has potential enough to be put in front of the Romantic Piano Concerto folk at Hyperion (and other labels) as and when we get the full score?

[Gareth Vaughan]

I think it is certainly worth a try. What is its date, please?

[eschiss1]

1933 per the list of his compositions @ the biography article at Wikipedia-Ukraine. (As run through Google Translate, but "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (this one - 1933);" seems reasonably underambiguous.)

It also lists a string quartet (1929), 2 piano quintets, 2 symphonies (the 1923 one that's on YouTube and etc., and a second from 1932), etc. (No, nothing composed- assuming these are composition dates- before 1915 and very little before 1920, at least so far as that article and its sources are concerned.)

I'm intrigued...

That said, the RPC series @ Hyperion has programmed works composed even later than 1933 (Medtner's piano concerto no.3 of 1937, e.g. Which I'd consider rather Romantic, myself.) And some piano concertos composed even in the 1910s are probably outside the radius of that series (... or whatever!), I expect. (Maybe Carpenter's concertino, Sorabji's first concerto, etc.? Hrm.) So...

[Christopher]

It seems that there might be recordings of the string quartets from the same source as the section of the first symphony which I posted up here a few weeks ago.  ie by holding a microphone to a magnetic reel being played...!

[Gareth Vaughan]

1933 - yes. Well, quite a lot of music was written in a tonal "Romantic" style in the 1930s (and beyond even), as Eric points out; the recently recorded by Hyperion extant Coke PCs, for example: 1938, 1940 and 1947-50, respectively.

[Christopher]

Incidentally - there is a Melodiya recording of excerpts about 50 minutes' worth)  from his ballet Song of the Forest ("Lisova Pisnya") - it's an exceptionally rare LP and difficult to find. I finally found a copy a few months ago and paid a fortune for it and have been mindful that UC prohibits uploads of LPs no matter how rare or out of print....and then found that it has recently been put up on YouTube - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hFsBTJuhtsE - it may give a further feel for his style.*

I have in the past posted up on UC excerpts from the ballet but they are YouTube rips of live performances so vary in terms of audio quality.

* The famous (in Ukraine) Adagio of Mavka and Lucas for violin and orchestra, which gets repeated encores in Ukraine, runs from 39m29s to 45m12s. Although as I said in the downloads section, another version which I have posted from YouTube, played by the Donetsk Orchestra, is much more passionate. One for Hyperion's Romantic Violin Concerto series perhaps!

[Mark Thomas]

then found that it has recently been put up on YouTube

YouTube seems to be able to flout copyright law.

[Christopher]

What actually is the copyright law for out of print Melodiya records? I personally have no idea.

[Alan Howe]

Here's the Andante funèbre from his 1st Symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUz55GRbZ_U
Very romantic indeed. Am I impressed, though? Erm...