Latvian music

[Dylan]

Many years ago I had a Melodiya LP featuring a piece called "Shakespeare Music", by a Latvian composer called Pauls Dambis. At the time I thought it one of the most breathtakingly beautiful pieces of music I'd ever heard. Alas, somehow the LP got lost, but I've been keeping an eye out for the composer ever since - without success. Anyone here have anything else by him - I'd love to know if my early impressions have stood the test of time...?

[eschiss1]

WorldCat notes other recordings of works by Dambis including a 37-minute LP of 2-piano (I'm guessing) pieces called Spēles : divām klavierēm, and a big co-composed??? Konsert-Requiem.  (Musical ) scores of 5 string quartets are noted, too...

[semloh]

Latvian - the works by MEDIŅŠ are just so enjoyable. Yet another unjustly neglected Latvian composer! Thank you for sharing them.

[Latvian]

the works by MEDIŅŠ are just so enjoyable. Yet another unjustly neglected Latvian composer! Thank you for sharing them.

You're welcome! More to come...

Many years ago I had a Melodiya LP featuring a piece called "Shakespeare Music", by a Latvian composer called Pauls Dambis. At the time I thought it one of the most breathtakingly beautiful pieces of music I'd ever heard. Alas, somehow the LP got lost, but I've been keeping an eye out for the composer ever since - without success. Anyone here have anything else by him - I'd love to know if my early impressions have stood the test of time...?

I have the disc -- I'll upload when I have a chance. The Sea Songs that are on the disc are among my very favorite choral works.

[Christopher]

I was in a vinyl shop the other day at, for the grand sum of 50 roubles, bought an LP (Melodiya) called "Organ Music by Latvian Composers" ("Latviesu Komponistu Skandarbi Ergelem") - if anyone is interested I can digitalise and upload (once I am back in London)....

Contents:

Romualds Jermaks (b.1931) - Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra
Indulis Kalnins (b.1918) - Water-Colours of the Lielupe
Margers Zarins (b.1910) - Fantasy of J.Poruk's theme
Jazeps Vitols (1863-1948) - Pastorale
Lucija Garuta - Meditation

Peteris Sipolnieks plays on the Grand Organ of Riga Cathedral (with the Latvian State Philharmonic Society Chamber Orchestra, conducted by T. Lifsics.

[eschiss1]

sounds interesting to me.

[Sicmu]

As promised, all the symphonies (and some extra pieces!) of Jãnis Ivanovs (1906-1983). Cross-post from shostakovich.ning.com with big thanks to Oleg for the uploads. Unfortunately, it is not always clear where the recording is from and who are the performers. I will contact Oleg about it and edit this post with more information accordingly.

Over the past few years I posted a lot of soviet music to this website, including a number of symphonies by Ivanovs, for those who don't wan't to sign up to the soviet composers website I will add the other links to this one little by little .

[eschiss1]

erm- the coupling of
"Symphony No. 1 "Poema-Sinfonia"
Latgalian Landscapes
Symphony No. 2"
sounds a -whole- lot like the first volume of the Campion series as to its content, it does. Someone should compare the timings...

[TerraEpon]

There in fact seems to be a few CDs in there -- one of the links is a direct link to a photo of a Marco Polo disc

[semloh]

Obviously a matter for our forum administrators. Methinks we are on dangerous ground!

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, gentlemen, for the heads-up. Clearly this post shouldn't have been approved as it contains no confirmation of the sources, something which I have now asked Callipygian to provide.

[Callipygian]

With sincere apologies for posting! Since it was a cross-post from the Soviet music forum, where similar copyright rules apply, I assumed everything was OK with the links. I will check all the links and repost those that do not contain commerical recordings.

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Callipygian. It's as much my fault for not properly checking your post before I approved it.

[eschiss1]

Volfgangs Dārzin̦š - 1906-62 - a son of Emils Dārzin̦š (1875-1910) - no luck here in figuring out what a pianist with a name like Zembergs might be either, at this time. (Latvian, so posting here rather than in the Russian & Soviet thread as originally. ) Emils Darzins with his 4 "simfoninius kūrinius" (from the Lithuanian Wikipedia article) (is that brief symphonies? symphonic poems? ... ... ) seems interesting too.

[eschiss1]

Re Sinaiski - wasn't his father a conductor who made Melodiya recordings also (and whose first initial also transliterates to "V." - making for some befuddlement...
or am I thinking of another famous father and son Soviet/ex-Soviet conducting pair- no, not the Järvi family)

And many thanks for the Ivanovs symphonies. Do you have also by any chance scans of the back covers of the LPs (I am asking for a lot I know) especially for 15 and 16 (I see the one for sym 18 ) where I find I seem to have been sent the recordings at one point but not the "track listings" which are not easy to find. (I have seen the score of sym. 9 at the New York Public Library- probably requires advance notice to see now like much else in their research division, unfortunately. Still a wonderful library, please don't mistake my opinion. They have a terrific open shelf "branch library" section too- nothing like open shelf for.. well, that's another topic (and a big part of my "biography", it seems. *g*))
(The 1975 recording of Rainbow- fairly sure it's the same one- -was- reissued in 1998 by Campion on their Volume 3, btw, though this might be NLA- again, I don't know.)