Vasily Kalafati (1869-1942)

[Christopher]

Kalafati (Russian of Greek descent) has been mentioned in passing in other threads, though there hasn't been a thread set up just for him, so I thought I would start one as I have seen that someone has recently posted on youtube his Nocturne (op.) which at 11 mins is a not-insubstantial piece. It would be nice if this sparks interest in his orchestral works. The piece is subtitled "La nuit à Goursouff" - Gurzuf (or Hurzuf) is a resort and town near Yalta in Crimea, part of Ukraine.  Kalafati was born nearby in Yevpatoria.

As noted before, when wikipedia and other entries say things like "Kalafati was one of the most important composers in Russia during his lifetime", curiosity is piqued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpdbJcq1OxE

The wikipedia entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Kalafati - details a couple of other recordings in the footnotes.

[eschiss1]

Do complete parts exist somewhere for his symphony, btw?

[dhibbard]

that was published by Belaieff  and the parts can be rented from CF Peters or the Free Library in PA

[Christopher]

 

that was published by Belaieff  and the parts can be rented from CF Peters or the Free Library in PA

?

Is that online or hard copy only?

Any idea about his symphonic poem "Legenda" for which he won a prize at the 1928 International Schubert Competition

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Fleisher Collection of music in the Free Library of Philadelphia is a substantial repository of orchestral scores and parts, and should be the first port of call for orchestral sets of works by any "unsung" composer. They rent (very cheaply) their materials in hard copy only for performance. The catalog URL is: https://know.freelibrary.org/   They do not have the Legenda but do hold 2 other orchestral works: the Overture-Fantaisie (pub. 1906) and the Polonaise, Op. 14. They also have the Piano Quintet, Op. 11.

[dhibbard]

YEs.. the Free Library was where  Bortkiewicz sent several works before he fled from Ukraine.    They discovered them in 2010.

[Christopher]

Presumably the Conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg have a lot of scores.  How to access them is another question.

[Christopher]

Another piano piece I found on youtube:

Prelude in B♭ minor, Op. 7 No. 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJpO8IJmU0w

[Alan Howe]

Here's the reduction for piano 4-hands of Kalafati's Symphony in A minor, Op.12 of 1912:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony%2C_Op.12_(Kalafati%2C_Vasily)

[Christopher]

It seems a string quartet called L'Anima play his music sometimes:

http://www.megaron.gr/default.asp?la=2&pid=5&evID=3303
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeBTuMaZsiw&app=desktop - these are both advertisements about a concert in Athens in November 2016.  If anyone has Greek language capabilities, perhaps they could do a search to see if a recording was made of the performance...

Also - this Russian site https://www.greekmos.ru/vasiliy_kalafati/ - states that "As part of the Greek music festival, held May 7, 2005 in the Athens Palace of Music, the Quintet of Calafati was performed."

[Christopher]

The final piece in this symphonic concert entitled "Leningraders: 900 Days in the Name of Life" ("ЛЕНИНГРАДЦЫ. 900 ДНЕЙ ВО ИМЯ ЖИЗНИ") is a march by Kalafati called "Stars of the Kremlin". It's about 5 minutes long.

The concert in 2014 marked 70 years since the end of the Siege of Leningrad. The music chosen was written by composers living, and in some cases dying, under the Siege.

Some of the other pieces (highlighted) in the concert possibly hint at unsungs of interest to this website:

Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky - overture-poster for the opera "Leningraders"
Dmitry Shostakovich - "Oath to the Addict" - Yuri Laptev
Valery Zhelobinsky - "A man bent over the water" - Zlata Bulycheva
Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky - folk scene from the opera "Leningraders"
Alexander Kamensky (1900-1952) - Heroic Partisan March - Ekaterina Mechetina
Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky - concert for violin and orchestra. Part I - Mikhail Gantvarg
Yuri Kochurov - Heroic Aria - Zlata Bulycheva
Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky - intermission and scene in the bomb shelter from the opera "Leningraders" - Lyudmila Dudinova
Yulia Weisberg (1880-1942) - lullaby from the opera Geese-Swans - Evdokia Malevskaya
Boris Asafiev (1884-1949) - choral miniature "Holy God"
Boris Goltz (1913-1942) - "A Star Shines High in the Sky" - Zlata Bulycheva
Boris Asafiev - "Maybe I Will Die" - Lyudmila Dudinova
Nikolay Myaskovsky (1881-1950) - cantata "Kirov is with us" - Yuri Laptev
Vasily Kalafati (1869-1942) - solemn march "Kremlin Stars"



https://tvkultura.ru/brand/show/brand_id/61446/


Audacity makes my laptop stop working.  Would anyone be willing to record that concert as an mp3 and then I will divide it up into the various pieces and post the ones which might be of interest...

[Christopher]

More on Kalafati and two other 19th century Russian composers of Greek descent can be found here.  The other two are Alferaki and Zolotarev (whose real surname was Kuyumzhi.)

https://users.ionio.gr/~GreekMus/pubgr/OperaGreekWorld19.pdf

from page 26

"The contribution of the Hellenic diaspora to the formation of the Russian opera in the 19th and the early 20th century", by Stanimira Dermendzhieva

part of a 300-page publication called "OPERA AND THE GREEK WORLD DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY"

[Mark Thomas]

Would anyone be willing to record that concert as an mp3 and then I will divide it up into the various pieces and post the ones which might be of interest...

. I'll do what I can, but it won't be for a little while.

[Christopher]

Thanks Mark!

[dhibbard]

regarding parts etc... if you locate the complete orchestral score, it can be scanned as a pdf and then uploaded with the Photoscore software into Sibelius software.   Sibelius can print off the parts if you locate an orchestra to play the parts.   Once it is loaded up in Sibelius, it can be played with the software Note Performer.  (see Martin's rendition of Zolotarev's on YouTube).

So.. perhaps all these unplayed music scores in the various libraries of the world can eventually be converted to a virtual performance.