Alexey Shor (b.1970) Violin Concerto

[Alan Howe]

How about this beautiful Violin Concerto in B minor? - played by Gil Shaham, no less!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulzuzTUWtaE

[Mark Thomas]

Hmmm, I'm not sure there's much substance to it at first hearing, but FWIW here's Shor's Cello Concerto, also on YouTube.

[Alan Howe]

You're probably right. Nice, but not deep.

[Sharkkb8]

I'm with Alan & Mark, perfectly pleasant, but probably won't make anyone forget Beethoven. At the same time, isn't it delightful to hear something composed in this day and age, that doesn't sound like a plane crashing into a train wreck?! 

[Alan Howe]

That was my reason for posting about it!

[Mark Thomas]

... and to that extent I agree, of course. Shor has written extensively and many of his works are available on YouTube - here's his own list of them. There's also a Naxos CD of a couple of his orchestral pieces. The music all seems to be extremely approachable, with an almost classical clarity of texture, but judging by the two or three pieces I've heard there isn't much beneath this surface polish.

[Christopher]

I was wondering if people had heard any more of this composer since he was last raised here.  There seems to be rather a lot of controversy surrounding him, not least accusations of ghostwriting, and being a means of spreading malign Russian influence. I'm curious! If his work is ghost-written, or computer generated, then I'm not going to buy his CDs! His real name is apparently Alexey Vladimorovich Kononenko.

https://timesofmalta.com/article/many-passports-and-alias-mystery-orchestra-composer.1014534

https://timesofmalta.com/article/malta-philharmonic-orchestra-ceo-defends-russian-backer-saying-hes.940959

[Alan Howe]

All I can add here is to advise caution, especially with regard to any allegations which might have been made about his music. For the time being I suggest that we stick to commenting on the music rather than engaging in speculation.

Returning to his compositions, they often sound to me like the sort of film music one hears all the time on ClassicFM here in the UK - i.e. attractive, but insubstantial. I'm not convinced there's anything here to get too excited about, either positively or negatively. If great claims were being made about his music, I'd be more concerned, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

[Christopher]

Bizarrely, the day after my above post, an investigative journalist published a huge 36-page exposé into Shor in the online classical music Van Magazine, it's jaw-dropping.

https://van-magazine.com/mag/alexey-shor-kononenko-ishkhanov-russian-influence-classical-music/

[Alan Howe]

...and inaccessible to non-subscribers, as far as I can see.

[Christopher]

...and inaccessible to non-subscribers, as far as I can see.

Hmmmm - I'm not a subscriber but I could open it.  Possibly you've read other articles on there recently and there's a limit as to how many free ones you can open per month.

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps you could copy and paste it in another post...

[Gareth Vaughan]

I can't access it either. And I certainly haven't read any articles on the site before.

[Christopher]

Perhaps you could copy and paste it in another post...

It's 36 pages long so would definitely exceed the character limit per post many times over. I can easily save it as a pdf and put up on mediafire and put the link here if of interest? (And it certainly is a very interesting if disturbing read.)

[Alan Howe]

How about a summary - main points only? Or the final paragraph of the article...