Kosslovsky Requiem

[Alan Howe]

jpc are announcing the forthcoming release on Melodiya of the Requiem by Ossip Kosslovsky (1757-1831). Sounds extraordinary...

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Ossip-Kosslovsky-Requiem-f%FCr-Solisten-Chor-Orchester/hnum/1139922

[Mark Thomas]

Wow! I'd never have guessed that it was written by a  composer born in 1757. If the sound bites are anything to go by then the recording is vibrantly immediate and that obviously gives it tremendous impact. It's already in my shopping basket.

[Alan Howe]

I can't find out anything about this composer. Can anyone help?

[M. Henriksen]

Yes I can!
Kosslovsky can also be spelled Kozlovsky.
Here's the Wikipedia-article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osip_Kozlovsky

It's at least a starting point!


Morten

[M. Henriksen]

By the way!
More details on the Requiem itself can be found at www.requiemsurvey.org
Morten

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Morten! Excellent detective work!

[Alan Howe]

OK, here's some more info:
http://www.melody.su/eng/work/catalog/classic/644
One of the best known musicians of his time, an author of the famous heroic polonaise Let the Thunder of Victory Sound, which became the anthem of the Russian Empire, Osip Antonovich Kozlovsky acquired glory and honour in his lifetime. His works were extensively performed and republished.
The composer was born in 1757 into a noble Polish family. He began to study music in Warsaw at St. John's Cathedral where he was a choirboy and played the organ.
In the years of the Russo-Turkish War, Osip Kozlovsky joined the Russian army and became known to Prince Grigory Potemkin who was impressed with the talent of the young officer and took him to St. Petersburg and introduced to the court of Catherine II.
The composer won fame thanks to his involvement in the grand rallies arranged by Potemkin in honour of the capture of the fortress of Izmail in 1791. The most famous court musicians, artists, architects and poets of the time were invited to arrange the festivities. During a concert at Tauride Palace, five choir pieces and variations of Russian, Moldavian and Ukrainian dances written by Kozlovsky for the occasion were performed.
These compositions, especially the celebrated Let the Thunder of Victory Sound to the verses of Gavrila Derzhavin, immediately won fame to the composer and put him in a row of popular and recognized metropolitan musicians. His dances sounded at magnificent balls, and his romances were played in the music parlours. Allegedly, Kozlovsky created a new genre of Russian song – romance to the words of Russian authors.
After Potemkin's death, Kozlovsky's music career was closely connected with the imperial theatre where he became a 'music inspector' in 1799 and then a 'music director' in 1803. Sixteen years of the composer's career were spent there until he retired. While serving in the theatre, he composed music to the tragedies by Ozerov, Shakhovskoy, Knyazhnin, and Gruzintsev. Being in charge of music repertoire of the theatres and undertaking theatrical performances and concerts, the composer also directed an orchestra and a school of the imperial theatres where he facilitated the development of instrumental classes. In 1815, Kozlovsky became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society.
At the end of his life, Kozlovsky was far gone. In 1822, he visited Poland accompanied by his daughter, a well-known harpist, but then returned to St. Petersburg, which had become his hometown, where he died in 1831.

Osip Kozlovsky was arguably an author of the first requiem in Russia. Missa pro defunctis in E flat minor is one of the most significant works in Kozlovsky's legacy. The requiem for the death of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the King of Poland, written for four voices and orchestra was performed for the first time at the Catholic Church of St. Catherine on 25 February, 1798, in St. Petersburg. Some of the best foreign artists of the time took part in the performance directed by the author himself. With this majestic mass for the dead, the composer paid the last honours to the monarch who died in a foreign land.
On this album the Requiem Mass is performed by Galina Simkina (soprano), Lidiya Tchernykh (soprano), Valentina Panina (mezzo-soprano), Konstantin Lisovsky (tenor), Vladimir Motorin (bass), and the State Moscow Choir, the Moscow Choir of Teachers and the State Symphony Orchestra of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR directed by Vladimir Yesipov.
     
   

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks Alan and Morten, that's really useful. I shall look forward to hearing the Requiem in full now.

[Alan Howe]

This is some work! It was written in 1798: imagine, if you will, a Requiem somewhere between Mozart/Cherubini and looking forward to aspects of Rossini/Berlioz, with a definite Russian accent in places and you'll have some idea of what to expect. It does sound as though it has been recorded in a large and empty cathedral, but that's a small price to pay. In a word: wow!

[Christopher]

The Yesipov recording, while technically perfect, is rather sterile I think.  And at times bizarrely slow (esp the Tuba...).  A much better interpretation is this one - http://intoclassics.net/news/2010-05-01-16031 -  and  http://files.mail.ru/06F8IJ   .  From a technical standpoint it is not as good, there is a lot of crackle and a few jumps (it sounds like a transfer from an LP_, but it perfectly captures the spirit, not least because it sounds like it might have been recorded in a large echoey cathedral.  The names of the artists, and other information about the recording, are not given.  However, this site specializes in old Melodiya recordings, so I am confident there aren't any copyright issues. 

Kozlovsky's Requiem is clearly a wonderful unsung piece and should get a wider airing!

[jerfilm]

Is there any way to surf that site-- mail.ru ??

Jerry

[Christopher]

Not sure what you mean by "surf" it?   Mail.ru is one of Russia's largest websites, equivalent to Yahoo or msn/hotmail (and did a major IPO recently).  And it has a file-sharing capacity.  If you want to download the Kozlovsky piece, click where is says "скачать" ('skachat' is Russian for "download").  The other website I mentioned (www.intoclassics.net) is for lovers of classical music and guides one to these file-sharing places.  It seems to be mostly old Melodiya recordings, and is in Russian only.

[jerfilm]

Thanks, Christopher.   I had no problem downloading the Requiem once I got Google to translate most of the text for me.

What I meant was, there must be other riches to mine on that site and how do we find them?  I'm most grateful when others make these discoveries and post their URLs as you were kind enough to do.  But I have lots of time on my hands, being old and retired, and would love to look for these things and then share them here as well.  Sadly, despite having traded Lps for some years with a friend in Moscow during the Cold War, my russian is limited to whatever transliterates.   And despite trying to track him down because I still owe him some records, I have not been able to find him.

But I digress.  Things aren't always easy to find even when the site is in your native tongue.  I think it was Eric who posted something yesterday  about a Gilse trio being on BBC3 and I spent about an hour last evening searching in vain for it.  Maybe some of us have to depend on others to root these things out.  But I'm sure always willing to try.

Jerry

[eschiss1]

I was probably- almost certainly- mistaken- I saw it on Euroclassic Notturno (or what I think was Euroclassic Notturno) on -another- station (Bartók Radio Hungary, mentioned in another thread in another subforum here) and just assumed it was on BBC too, but shouldn't have said it was on BBC without actually checking. So actually I was going by something that was not in my native tongue and making inferences and not even bothering to check. Foolish/stupid of me. Sorry!!!! But the BBC does sometimes play his unfinished quartet. Will be on the lookout. (Through the Night/Finnish Radio did play an interesting-looking piano concerto - from 1971, but not necessarily modern in sound; will go listen soon ... - by Matti Rautio from Finland - last night - Link- apparently not available on CD except on those transcription radio CDs to radio stations, from what I can see.)

[eschiss1]

hrm. (edited in something poss. interesting though unrelated to my last post.) I will see if the Gilse was on last week and archived or is on soon.) I do see that the BBC Through the Night (Euroclassic Notturno, etc.) has rebroadcast the Gilse trio before, e.g. in 2009 (played by the Viotta Ensemble), and not just his unfinished string quartet. (From the Euroclassic Notturno description for January 9 2009:
Gilse, Jan van (1881-1944)
Trio (1927) for flute, violin and viola (Ruhig frei, Alla marcia leggiero, Molto vivace)
Viotta Ensemble
NLNOS

Gilse's 1916 Nonet will be on, it seems, tomorrow? (2:31 am local) - link
and his trio does seem to have been on last night?? (5:20 am local)... link
not sure if that's right, though yes, one has to push the iPlayer through and through to get there. Used to be one could just extract a RealPlayer link for their player and do that at one's leisure, but not now, I think...