Schnittke - Discoveries - Toccata Classics: TOCC0091 - CD or download

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mesmerisingly bizarre...the sound and performances are thoroughly excellent. Not perhaps the first place to start with Schnittke, but certainly to be considered if you think you've already got... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2010, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 31st May 2010
Catalogue No: TOCC0091
Label: Toccata Classics
Length: 78 minutes

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Schnittke: 6 Preludes

Work length18:20

$6.00

$7.80

Drosostalitsa Moraiti

No. 1, Moderato

Track length2:29

$1.00

$1.30

No. 2, Presto

Track length1:44

$1.00

$1.30

No. 3, Lento

Track length2:57

$1.00

$1.30

No. 4, (Andante)

Track length2:15

$1.00

$1.30

No. 5, (Maestoso)

Track length4:24

$1.00

$1.30

No. 6, (Fugue)

Track length4:31

$1.00

$1.30

Schnittke: Dialogue for Cello and Seven Performers

Work length12:55

$3.00

$3.85

Alexander Ivashkin
Pentaèdre
Jeremy Bell

Schnittke: Der gelbe Klang (Yellow Sound)

Work length34:54

Album only

Nelly Lee
Bolshoi Soloists Ensemble
Alexander Lazarev

Schnittke: Magdalina

Work length7:53

$2.00

$2.60

Liora Grodnikaite, Drosostalitsa Moraiti

Schnittke: Variations for string quartet

Work length4:10

$1.00

$1.30

Oleh Krysa, Natalia Lomeiko, Konstantin Boyarsky, Alexander Ivashkin

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Alfred Schnittke (1934–98) was the most important Russian composer of the late 20th century, and his output has been documented in recordings more thoroughly than that of any other Russian composer since Shostakovich.

But there are a number of works which have not yet been released on CD, and four of the five works here are not only first recordings; they also document Schnittke’s stylistic evolution over more than four decades, from his relatively traditional Preludes for piano to the elliptical Variations for string quartet that represents his search for a new universal musical language.

Yellow Sound, the largest work here, is a unique collaboration across the decades with the expressionist artist Vassily Kandinsky. Schnittke, like Kandinsky, was synaesthetic – experiencing music as colour – and Yellow Sound uses Kandinsky’s libretto and explores his philosophy on the ‘spirituality’ of art. Recorded in the presence of the composer in Moscow in 1984 and remastered for this release.

Magdalina for mezzo-soprano and piano is a rare example of Schnittke’s song output and his only setting of a poem from Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago; it lay unpublished and unperformed for over 30 years.

Variations for string quartet: Schnittke spent the last four years of his life gravely ill after a series of crippling strokes, and was unable to write with his right hand. This is one of his last works, written using his left hand only and found in his apartment in Hamburg after his death.

This release is the brainchild of the cellist Alexander Ivashkin, who appears on the disc as soloist and chamber musician and was a close personal friend of Schnittke and his biographer.

Reviews

December 2010

mesmerisingly bizarre...the sound and performances are thoroughly excellent. Not perhaps the first place to start with Schnittke, but certainly to be considered if you think you've already got the measure of this surprisingly various composer

Schnittke - Discoveries

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