Russian & Soviet Music

[eschiss1]

wait until you actually do run into a composer with a name like Jan Smit and try to do any research about... never mind... !

[Mark Thomas]

I've added links to recordings of the original 1866 version of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.1 and his early C minor Concert Overture, both of them unsung works by a very sung composer.

[JimL]

You wouldn't happen to have Tchaikovsky's Concert Overture in F as well, would you?  I think it's from 1865.

[Mark Thomas]

No, otherwise I'd have uploaded it. There were several other rarities in the BBC broadcasts but the performances have all appeared on CD at some stage.

[TerraEpon]

The Overture in F has had digital recordings by both Pletnev (DG) and N Jarvi (BIS).
Easily available on either if you want it.
However...

...this is the beefed up revised version. The original version for smaller orchestra has to my knowledge never been recorded.

[jowcol]

Music of Nikolai Kapustin

Kapustin on Piano with Oleg Lundstrem's Jazz Orchestra

1. Concert  Rhapsody Op. 25, 1976
2. Etude for Piano and Orch. Op 19, 1974
3.  Nocturne for Piano and Orchestra Op. 20, 1974

I've posted three works by Kapustin-- the composer known mostly for his attempts to apply classical rigor to jazz ideas-- you will see in the information below that he considers himself a classical composer. 

From his Wikipedia Bio:

Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin (Russian: Николай Гиршевич Капустин) (born November 22, 1937 in Gorlovka, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian Russian composer and pianist.

Kapustin studied piano with Avrelian Rubakh (pupil of Felix Blumenfeld who also taught Simon Barere and Vladimir Horowitz) and, later, Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory. During the 1950s he acquired a reputation as a jazz pianist, arranger and composer. He is steeped, therefore, in both the traditions of classical virtuoso pianism and improvisational jazz.

He fuses these influences in his compositions, using jazz idioms in formal classical structures. An example of this is his Suite in the Old Style, Op. 28, written in 1977, which inhabits the sound world of jazz improvisation but is modelled on baroque suites such as the keyboard partitas composed by J. S. Bach, each movement being a stylised dance or a pair of dances in strict binary form. Other examples of this fusion are his set of 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82, written in 1997, and the Op. 100 Sonatina.

Kapustin views himself as a composer rather than a jazz musician. He has said, "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisation is written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them."[1]

Among his works are 20 piano sonatas, six piano concerti, other instrumental concerti, sets of piano variations, études and concert studies.

Russian and Japanese record labels have released several recordings of the composer playing his own music. He has also been championed by a number of prominent western pianists, including Steven Osborne and Marc-André Hamelin who both released CDs devoted to Kapustin.

Here is an interview with the band leader that may be of interest:
http://www.lundstrem-jazz.ru/eng/arhiv_press_01.php

and a clip of them performing together on Soviet TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEDI9_oNlCA


My Take
I usually don't weigh in on aspects of an "unsung" that don't appeal to me, but I find his solo works more interesting-- I wasn't all that impressed with the orchestrations/arrangements, but they are definitely accessible, and would won't upset any of the more delicate nervous systems.  But I was hoping for more.

I don't mind efforts to cross genres -- quite the contrary.  Classical has been adapting to, and redefining popular forms for a long time.  But,  for the most part, I have tended to find the most interesting Jazz/classical crossover attempts were those that started  on the Jazz side of the fence.  Jazz composers  like Gil Evans (Sketches of Spain with Miles Davis), Charles Mingus (the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady),  the amazing Duke Ellington (particularity his more ambitious later works like the Far East Suite and Afro-Eurasian Eclipse), and even Pharaoh Sanders, (if you want to live on the wild side , try The Creator has  a Master Plan), have done a lot more, from my point of view, to advance the idiom. 

Just my 5 cents worth.  Your mileage may vary.

[TerraEpon]

These three come from here:
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/~kapustin/Nikolai/Nikolai_Kapustin_index.htm

They appear to actually be from an LP, though I keep wondering if the LP was originally in stereo.

Pesonally I absolutely adore much of his music. And incidentally there's a recording of the Piano Concerto No. 4 posted here somewhere (though also available http://d154044.u31.europeserver.nl/kapustin/music%20ludmil%20angelov.html among other non-commercial recordings on that site) 

[jowcol]

These three come from here:
http://www.theory.caltech.edu/~kapustin/Nikolai/Nikolai_Kapustin_index.htm

They appear to actually be from an LP, though I keep wondering if the LP was originally in stereo.

Pesonally I absolutely adore much of his music. And incidentally there's a recording of the Piano Concerto No. 4 posted here somewhere (though also available http://d154044.u31.europeserver.nl/kapustin/music%20ludmil%20angelov.html among other non-commercial recordings on that site)

Thanks for providing the source-- I'll update the downloads page,  and and thank you more for sharing your feelings about his music.  I'm always happiest when people talk about the music they love-- even if it doesn't strike me the same way.

[Nervous Gentleman]

Greetings,

This is just a note that I am currently completing a special custom-subtitled DVD of Eduard Nápravník's "Dubrovsky" (in collaboration with several native Russian-speakers). The final DVD will contain two versions: the abridged 1961 telefilm and a second composite version of the same video (the only video of this opera out there) with most of the excised music reinstated from audio sources and fully subbed in English and Russian (some cuts to the score are missing from all extant recordings). The added audio will be accompanied by still photos from the 1961 film, as well as shots taken from the classic 1935 Soviet non-opera film of Pushkin's novel (the 1961 film already contains some exterior shots borrowed from the 1935 film; so I am merely adding a few more shots to complement the added music). This is probably the first time that this opera has been translated into English.

I am also working on an English, Russian and Ukrainian subtitled video of Mykola Lysenko's "Taras Bulba" (in collaboration with two native Ukrainain/Russian speakers).

I have also posted to the download section two of my rare opera subtitle projects from last year.  I have many others, as well (if anyone is interested).

[Christopher]

Viktor Kosenko (1896-1938) - Piano Concerto (1928)


A live concert performance of this piece is now available on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G96MJWiHdr4 and it's a truly magnificant piece - very much in the Rachmaninov mould. I would love to hear what other people think.

Performers: Arthur Nikulin, Academic Symphonic Orchestra of Lviv Philharmonic Society, Dmytro Logvin

I have also made an mp3 from this recording and will drop in the Downloads section ( I presume this is allowed?).

[herrarte]

"You wouldn't happen to have Tchaikovsky's Concert Overture in F as well, would you?  I think it's from 1865."

If you want this recording let me know.


Overture to the Storm Alexander Ostrovsky's drama, Op. 1864
Voivod Symphonic Ballad (by A. Mickiewicz), Op. posthumous
Fate Symphonic Fantasia Op. posthumous
Overture in F major (first edition), vol. 1865
Moscow State Symphony Orchestra
CONDUCTOR Veronica Dudarova

Solemn March in D Major, Op. 1883
Overture in C minor Op. 1866
Pravovedsky March in D Major Op. 1885
Slavic (Serbo-Russian) march in B flat minor, Op. 31
Overture in F major (second edition), vol. 1866
Solemn Overture on the Danish national anthem op. 15
State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Conductor Alexander Lazarev

Serenade for Nikolay Rubinstein name day op. 1872
LARGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Central Television and All-Union Radio
CONDUCTOR Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov

Elegy Memory IV Samarin, "Hey thanks," Op. 1884
Chamber Orchestra of Moscow State Conservatory
CONDUCTOR MICHAEL TERIAN

Solemn Overture "1812," op. Revision 49 V. Shebalin
State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov

Military March (dedicated to the 98 th Infantry Regiment Yuryev) in B flat major, Op. 1893 (original for Piano)
SEPARATE Orchestra of USSR Ministry of Defense
Conductor Nikolai Sergeyev


I can post the link in the Russian Download section.

[JimL]

Post away!!!

[JimL]

My dear Herrarte:

That link was absolutely useless to me.  I appreciate it, but I don't even know if I got anything because I don't read Cyrillic.  All I got was a downloader, and when I try to use it I get an Error 503, whatever that is.  Please use Mediafire.

[TerraEpon]

Just click the big red button.

[gpdlt2010]

Thanks to herrarte for the Tchaicovsky compilation. Those are really hard-to-find pieces! It was fun to listen to the Shebalin "intrusion" in the 1812 ouverture.
No problem whatsoever with the download.