wimpel69
05-22-2017, 09:56 AM
Please request the FLAC link in this thread. PM's will be ignored! This is my own rip.
Also, please do not share any further. Buy the original! mp3 link found below.
The Gadfly Suite. Since his studenthood at the Leningrad Conservatory Dmitri Shostakovich had developed a strong connection to cinema.
In the twenties of the last century he earned his living as a pianist at silent movie theatres, and the influence of this new media, which became
highly important in the young Soviet Union, went along with the composer for a lifetime, testified by an output of nearly 40 film scores.
In 1955 Alexander Fainzimmer made a film based on the novel „The Gadfly“ by the English authoress Ethel Lilian Voynich, which was extremely popular
and a bestseller in the Soviet Union. It was about the tragic story of a young freedom fighter in 19th-century Italy nicknamed „Gadfly“, who, as an
illegitimate son of a cardinal ultimately turned into a rebelling dandy, who was finally executed by a firing squad. Shostakovich was intrigued by
the plot and the environment where it took place, since this allowed him to play with Mediterranean musical patterns. Shostakovich’s associate and
friend Levon Atovmian condensed the complete score down to a suite, consisting of twelve movements, which were used for this recording. The single
titles already give an idea of what the music is about – pure entertainment, characterising the moving pictures by means of the music.
A contredanse recalling the 18th century, an Italian tarantella type characterising a funfair, unusual classical instruments such as
saxophone and hurdy-gurdy reminiscences during a humorous waltz, a romance, which recalls the famous „M�ditation“ from Saint-Sa�ns „Tha�s“
(easygoing enough to become later the main theme of the British TV series „Reilly, Ace of Spies“) – this is musical mainstream at the highest
level making the listening of this colourful and diverse suite a genuine pleasure.
Snowstorm. Georgy Sviridov’s roots in Russian folk music made his connection to Alexander Pushkin nearly inevitable. So when in 1964
the film director Vladimir Basov planned a filmization of Pushkin’s nshort story Snowstorm, he approached Sviridov, who agreed by return.
His musical depiction of the film, based on Pushkin’s Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, proves his talent and creativeness in folkloristic
musical composition, using at the same time romantic stylistic elements, including the large romantic symphony orchestra. The richness of his
musical language inspired by the poetic strength of Pushkin’s writing creates a scent of Hollywood flavour, which might not be a coincidence.
The last scene from Snowstorm „Winter Road“ was allegedly plagiarized and used as the main theme for the popular video game series „Metal
Gear Solid“.
Music Composed by
Dmitri Shostakovich
Georgy Sviridov
Played by the
L�thuanian Chamber Orchestra
St. Petersburg Camerata
Conducted by
Saulius Sondeckis
Alexander Titov
[i]"The outline of Georgy Sviridov's prize-spangled career as a Soviet composer might suggest that he was a
party hack, one of the cogs in the Communist wheel. As usual in such matters, the truth is less black and white: Sviridov
managed simultaneously to write the music he felt was important and to deliver his political masters the socialist-
realist monuments they wanted.
He was born in Fatezh, in the southern-Russian region of Kursk. After cutting his teeth in the Children's Music School
in Kursk, he moved to Leningrad where he took lessons with Mikhail Yudin at the Central Music College (1932-36).
He then studied composition with Dmitry Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory, graduating in 1941 (the year he
also finished his military service). As with many of his fellow pupils, Sviridov's time with Shostakovich marked his own
music profoundly.
In his first maturity Sviridov composed with genuine vigour, although not all his early works survived the war. Two piano
concertos emerged in 1936 and 1942, a symphony for strings in 1940, a piano sonata in 1944 and two partitas for
piano in 1947 (two years after he had begun a career as a concert pianist); two string quartets, a piano trio and quintet
date from the mid-1940s; and there were three musical comedies in 1939, 1942 and 1952, and the incidental music
to a series of plays (including Othello and Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas) between 1942 and 1952.
It was after he moved to Moscow in 1955 that Sviridov's reputation as an "official" composer was born, with the first
of the big oratorios much favoured by the Soviet authorities, The Decembrists (1955) and, especially, Poem to the
Memory of Sergei Yesenin (1955-56). Sviridov was to write several of these distended scores; one of them, the Oratorio
Pathetique (1959), was calculated to appeal to the apparatchiks and it duly gained him a Lenin Prize in 1960, in which
year he also dutifully composed the Poem about Lenin.
Sviridov collected the titles necessary for progress in the Soviet hierarchy: he was awarded the Order of Lenin four times;
he was a People's Artist of the RFSFR in 1963, a People's Artist of the USSR in 1970, and a Hero of Soviet Labour in 1975.
Eventually he ascended to the position of First Secretary of the RFSFR Union of Composers, which he held from 1962 to 1974.
But he was much more than the political opportunist that this list suggests. The best of his music is uncommonly beautiful,
and deserves a long life - and regular hearings outside Russia. The warm, sincere heart of Sviridov emerged when he was
dealing with subjects that evoked an idealistic image of "Mother Russia", whose past glories, real or otherwise, had a deep
(and pre-Communist) resonance for him. Indeed, Sviridov's attachment to Russia's Slavic history - an attitude encouraged
by the Communists because it served their political purposes - mirrors very closely Furtwangler's German nationalism
under the Nazis, and one can ascribe to both men either moral ambiguity or simple naivety. Sviridov himself put it
plainly enough, in a passage that is at least ambivalent about the Communist era:
Russian music, indeed all Russian art, has for most of its history been closely bound up with the Orthodox outlook and
philosophy. That is the tap-root of our culture, its originality and individuality. In the course of the last century, that
connection was severed. Will it be possible to restore it? Not only the destiny of our culture depends on it, but the very
existence of Russians as a nation, with a place and voice in world history. The restoration of this spiritual connection is
the most difficult task facing our society. Only by taking this path do I see any future for Russian art.
He expressed these Slavophile sympathies particularly in his choral music, which can be very touching. His Kursk Songs,
a far cry from the bombast of the Oratorio Pathetique, are gentle realisations of folk melodies from his native region;
the cantata Snow is Falling, to texts by Pasternak (1965), is a model of how to write music of delightful simplicity; and
"Reveille is Sounded", a movement from his choral concerto Pushkin's Garland (1978), is one of those achingly lovely
pieces that you never forget once you've heard it. No cynic wrote music so honest.
His songs, solo or choral, are likewise highly effective, and he chose his poets carefully, perhaps to underline his
Slavophile tendencies: as well as Pasternak, he set Lermontov, Pushkin and Blok. But his conservative nationalism
did not blind him to other sources: one of his best-known song-cycles is a series of Burns settings from 1955.
The hallmark of his vocal writing is an effortless, direct lyricism that ultimately makes unresolved questions about
his political stance roundly irrelevant.
Sviridov's orchestral catalogue is not large, nor is it radical or path- breaking in a way that would draw abnormal
attention to it. But it contains some true gems. One year in particular - 1964 - produced the Music for Chamber
Orchestra, the Little Triptych and the infectiously appealing music for a film of Pushkin's The Snowstorm, a minor
masterpiece of melodious irony.
His output fell away as he grew older, much to the displeasure of Shostakovich, who considered Sviridov one of the
most gifted of his pupils and was dismayed to see his talent deployed so intermittently, even lackadaisically. Sviridov
was none the less one of the few prominent ex-pupils of Shostakovich who refused to join in the KGB-organised
chorus of condemnation in 1979 when Testimony, Shostakovich's disputed memoirs, were first published (in the
West, of course).
Over the past few years the CD market has begun to catch up with Sviridov's music - in every case, interestingly
enough, in recordings made after the fall of the Soviet Union. The UK label Olympia has now released three discs,
including the music to The Snowstorm (broadcasts of which always brought a flurry of enthusiastic letters from listeners)
and Pushkin's Garland; Koch Schwann offers the Piano Trio; the first instalment in a survey of the piano music has
just come from Altarus; and Dmitry Hvorostovsky has recorded the song-cycle that brought Sviridov to London two
years ago to hear it.
The tip of the iceberg, perhaps, but it allows the Western listener to form an impression of Sviridov's musical personality -
one so attractive that any remaining misgivings about the man fall away. And it is easy for us, comfortable in the
relative freedoms of democracy, to forget that it was sometimes necessary to sup with the devil to be able to sup
at all."
Sviridov obit, The Independent
Download link (mp3) - mp3 link is dead!
Source: CuGate Classics CD (My rip)
Formats: FLAC(RAR), mp3(320)
File Sizes: 320 MB / 178 MB
Please request the FLAC link in this thread. PM's will be ignored! This is my own rip.
Also, please do not share any further. Buy the original! mp3 link found above.
Also, please do not share any further. Buy the original! mp3 link found below.
The Gadfly Suite. Since his studenthood at the Leningrad Conservatory Dmitri Shostakovich had developed a strong connection to cinema.
In the twenties of the last century he earned his living as a pianist at silent movie theatres, and the influence of this new media, which became
highly important in the young Soviet Union, went along with the composer for a lifetime, testified by an output of nearly 40 film scores.
In 1955 Alexander Fainzimmer made a film based on the novel „The Gadfly“ by the English authoress Ethel Lilian Voynich, which was extremely popular
and a bestseller in the Soviet Union. It was about the tragic story of a young freedom fighter in 19th-century Italy nicknamed „Gadfly“, who, as an
illegitimate son of a cardinal ultimately turned into a rebelling dandy, who was finally executed by a firing squad. Shostakovich was intrigued by
the plot and the environment where it took place, since this allowed him to play with Mediterranean musical patterns. Shostakovich’s associate and
friend Levon Atovmian condensed the complete score down to a suite, consisting of twelve movements, which were used for this recording. The single
titles already give an idea of what the music is about – pure entertainment, characterising the moving pictures by means of the music.
A contredanse recalling the 18th century, an Italian tarantella type characterising a funfair, unusual classical instruments such as
saxophone and hurdy-gurdy reminiscences during a humorous waltz, a romance, which recalls the famous „M�ditation“ from Saint-Sa�ns „Tha�s“
(easygoing enough to become later the main theme of the British TV series „Reilly, Ace of Spies“) – this is musical mainstream at the highest
level making the listening of this colourful and diverse suite a genuine pleasure.
Snowstorm. Georgy Sviridov’s roots in Russian folk music made his connection to Alexander Pushkin nearly inevitable. So when in 1964
the film director Vladimir Basov planned a filmization of Pushkin’s nshort story Snowstorm, he approached Sviridov, who agreed by return.
His musical depiction of the film, based on Pushkin’s Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, proves his talent and creativeness in folkloristic
musical composition, using at the same time romantic stylistic elements, including the large romantic symphony orchestra. The richness of his
musical language inspired by the poetic strength of Pushkin’s writing creates a scent of Hollywood flavour, which might not be a coincidence.
The last scene from Snowstorm „Winter Road“ was allegedly plagiarized and used as the main theme for the popular video game series „Metal
Gear Solid“.
Music Composed by
Dmitri Shostakovich
Georgy Sviridov
Played by the
L�thuanian Chamber Orchestra
St. Petersburg Camerata
Conducted by
Saulius Sondeckis
Alexander Titov
[i]"The outline of Georgy Sviridov's prize-spangled career as a Soviet composer might suggest that he was a
party hack, one of the cogs in the Communist wheel. As usual in such matters, the truth is less black and white: Sviridov
managed simultaneously to write the music he felt was important and to deliver his political masters the socialist-
realist monuments they wanted.
He was born in Fatezh, in the southern-Russian region of Kursk. After cutting his teeth in the Children's Music School
in Kursk, he moved to Leningrad where he took lessons with Mikhail Yudin at the Central Music College (1932-36).
He then studied composition with Dmitry Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory, graduating in 1941 (the year he
also finished his military service). As with many of his fellow pupils, Sviridov's time with Shostakovich marked his own
music profoundly.
In his first maturity Sviridov composed with genuine vigour, although not all his early works survived the war. Two piano
concertos emerged in 1936 and 1942, a symphony for strings in 1940, a piano sonata in 1944 and two partitas for
piano in 1947 (two years after he had begun a career as a concert pianist); two string quartets, a piano trio and quintet
date from the mid-1940s; and there were three musical comedies in 1939, 1942 and 1952, and the incidental music
to a series of plays (including Othello and Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas) between 1942 and 1952.
It was after he moved to Moscow in 1955 that Sviridov's reputation as an "official" composer was born, with the first
of the big oratorios much favoured by the Soviet authorities, The Decembrists (1955) and, especially, Poem to the
Memory of Sergei Yesenin (1955-56). Sviridov was to write several of these distended scores; one of them, the Oratorio
Pathetique (1959), was calculated to appeal to the apparatchiks and it duly gained him a Lenin Prize in 1960, in which
year he also dutifully composed the Poem about Lenin.
Sviridov collected the titles necessary for progress in the Soviet hierarchy: he was awarded the Order of Lenin four times;
he was a People's Artist of the RFSFR in 1963, a People's Artist of the USSR in 1970, and a Hero of Soviet Labour in 1975.
Eventually he ascended to the position of First Secretary of the RFSFR Union of Composers, which he held from 1962 to 1974.
But he was much more than the political opportunist that this list suggests. The best of his music is uncommonly beautiful,
and deserves a long life - and regular hearings outside Russia. The warm, sincere heart of Sviridov emerged when he was
dealing with subjects that evoked an idealistic image of "Mother Russia", whose past glories, real or otherwise, had a deep
(and pre-Communist) resonance for him. Indeed, Sviridov's attachment to Russia's Slavic history - an attitude encouraged
by the Communists because it served their political purposes - mirrors very closely Furtwangler's German nationalism
under the Nazis, and one can ascribe to both men either moral ambiguity or simple naivety. Sviridov himself put it
plainly enough, in a passage that is at least ambivalent about the Communist era:
Russian music, indeed all Russian art, has for most of its history been closely bound up with the Orthodox outlook and
philosophy. That is the tap-root of our culture, its originality and individuality. In the course of the last century, that
connection was severed. Will it be possible to restore it? Not only the destiny of our culture depends on it, but the very
existence of Russians as a nation, with a place and voice in world history. The restoration of this spiritual connection is
the most difficult task facing our society. Only by taking this path do I see any future for Russian art.
He expressed these Slavophile sympathies particularly in his choral music, which can be very touching. His Kursk Songs,
a far cry from the bombast of the Oratorio Pathetique, are gentle realisations of folk melodies from his native region;
the cantata Snow is Falling, to texts by Pasternak (1965), is a model of how to write music of delightful simplicity; and
"Reveille is Sounded", a movement from his choral concerto Pushkin's Garland (1978), is one of those achingly lovely
pieces that you never forget once you've heard it. No cynic wrote music so honest.
His songs, solo or choral, are likewise highly effective, and he chose his poets carefully, perhaps to underline his
Slavophile tendencies: as well as Pasternak, he set Lermontov, Pushkin and Blok. But his conservative nationalism
did not blind him to other sources: one of his best-known song-cycles is a series of Burns settings from 1955.
The hallmark of his vocal writing is an effortless, direct lyricism that ultimately makes unresolved questions about
his political stance roundly irrelevant.
Sviridov's orchestral catalogue is not large, nor is it radical or path- breaking in a way that would draw abnormal
attention to it. But it contains some true gems. One year in particular - 1964 - produced the Music for Chamber
Orchestra, the Little Triptych and the infectiously appealing music for a film of Pushkin's The Snowstorm, a minor
masterpiece of melodious irony.
His output fell away as he grew older, much to the displeasure of Shostakovich, who considered Sviridov one of the
most gifted of his pupils and was dismayed to see his talent deployed so intermittently, even lackadaisically. Sviridov
was none the less one of the few prominent ex-pupils of Shostakovich who refused to join in the KGB-organised
chorus of condemnation in 1979 when Testimony, Shostakovich's disputed memoirs, were first published (in the
West, of course).
Over the past few years the CD market has begun to catch up with Sviridov's music - in every case, interestingly
enough, in recordings made after the fall of the Soviet Union. The UK label Olympia has now released three discs,
including the music to The Snowstorm (broadcasts of which always brought a flurry of enthusiastic letters from listeners)
and Pushkin's Garland; Koch Schwann offers the Piano Trio; the first instalment in a survey of the piano music has
just come from Altarus; and Dmitry Hvorostovsky has recorded the song-cycle that brought Sviridov to London two
years ago to hear it.
The tip of the iceberg, perhaps, but it allows the Western listener to form an impression of Sviridov's musical personality -
one so attractive that any remaining misgivings about the man fall away. And it is easy for us, comfortable in the
relative freedoms of democracy, to forget that it was sometimes necessary to sup with the devil to be able to sup
at all."
Sviridov obit, The Independent
Download link (mp3) - mp3 link is dead!
Source: CuGate Classics CD (My rip)
Formats: FLAC(RAR), mp3(320)
File Sizes: 320 MB / 178 MB
Please request the FLAC link in this thread. PM's will be ignored! This is my own rip.
Also, please do not share any further. Buy the original! mp3 link found above.