Schnittke: Concerto for Piano & Strings (1979)

Russian pianist Ksenia Bashmet, rising star and daughter of the legendary viola player and conductor Yuri Bashmet makes her solo debut on Quartz, performing two major 20th century Russian concertos – Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1 and Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for piano & strings – as well as J S Bach's Concerto in D minor, BWV1052 with the acclaimed Moscow Soloists under her father’s baton.

CD+DVD

This unusual project presents a rounded portrait of the Belgrade-born pianist Mira Yevtich through a live concert DVD of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for piano & strings and four diverse pieces for solo piano by Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi, via Haydn and Brahms to Alexander Tchaikovsky (born 1946), and a CD, recorded in a Moscow Radio studio, of those same four solo works. Mira Yevtich studied at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and won the 1988 International Festival of Modern Music in St Petersburg. Now an Australian national, she is a regular soloist at Sydney Opera House, and performs in Russia and throughout Europe and America. She has played with conductors such as Valeri Gergiev, Evgeni Svetlanov, and Yuri Bashmet, and made several CDs, among them four for Bel Air. These include Mozart Piano Concertos, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and most recently ‘The Music of Grant Foster’.

Here her typically enterprising repertoire encompasses a Haydn Sonata and Brahms Two Rhapsodies, Op 79, and two rarities, a keyboard sonata by Galuppi, the prolific Italian Baroque composer very much better known for his operas, and the Piano Sonata dedicated to her by contemporary Russian composer Alexander Tchaikovsky (apparently unrelated to his famous namesake Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky). Her performance of the Schnittke concerto with the State Hermitage Orchestra under Vladimir Fanshil and the alternative versions of the four solo pieces were recorded in St Petersburg in May.

Alfred Schnittke’s early years were difficult as he lived through the Soviet Era, often finding himself the target of Soviet bureaucracy. Before his emigration to the West some of his works were banned and he battled with a lack of recognition.

This new SACD from Phoenix Edition brings together première recordings of all three piano concertos. Schnittke developed his own unique style, taking up the serial tecnique and developing a style known as ‘polystylism’, juxtaposing various styles both past and present. This is evident in both the second and third concertos featured on this disc. This didn’t help the suspician the surrounded his music, and as his works could not be ascribed to any particular style it was never able to be taken seriously. Many of his works are either unknown or have not yet been performed.

Ewa Kupiec is recognised as one of Europe's most dedicated interpreters of contemporary music. Her performance in 2004 of Schnittke's First Piano Concerto with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra was the first performance of this work since 1964. This successful collaboration immediately led to a further invitation to record all of Schnittke's works for piano and orchestra (including the concerto for four hands).

Victoria Lyubitskaya, one of Lew Naumov's and Vladimir Krainev's most talented students, is a soloist with the Moscow State Philharmonia. For her very first recording outside Russia, we discover her phenomenal talent in an innovative programme that reaches back to the very roots of Schnittke's creativity.With the kind assistance of the composer's widow for this project, the works

are here interpreted with the utmost respect for Schnittke's original intentions. In the piano concerto dating from 1979, we also have the privilege to listen to the legendary Russian State Academy Orchestra, previously acclaimed under Yevgeny Svetlanov which is back in form under the baton of Mark Gorenstein. This record is offered at a special price and includes the 2008 catalogue.