Classical Music

Classical Music

The complete symphonic version of Theodorakis' best-known work including English, French and German libretto. In the "Zorba" ballet suite, Mikis Theodorakis uses almost exclusively well-known popular songs which he composed mainly in the 1960s. Some of them have been incorporated in the work as melodies, some of them as vocal pieces. It took twenty years before the composer became his normal self again; he first had to experience the disillusionment at the end of the 1970s concerning the social progress in Greece in order to be finally able to pick up the musical material, continue the compositional impetus of the 1950s and develop an appreciation for the genre of the opera in the mid-eighties which suits his composer's mentality – both as a melodist and as a symphonic composer – very well. When looking at the last and probably most productive period of his life, Theodorakis' return to symphonic music in 1980 must be seen as an act of liberation, as a return to his self. Since then, he has written several symphonies and oratorio-like works. In 1987, at last, the Zorba ballet marks the beginning of a new aesthetic practice.

Recorded in: Stockholm Concert Hall 4-5, 7-11 June 1993 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

BEETHOVEN: Overtures, Vol. 2

FAMOUS WALTZES

Classical Music

1987 release with highlights from his famous ballets. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) performed by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Slovak Philahrmonic June 20-25, 1987 & Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra recorded at Concert Hall of the Czecho-Slovak Radio in Bratislava October 13-20, 1987 conducted by Michael Halasz & Ondrej Lenard. The music of Tchaikovsky, in spite of the reservations of contemporaries at home and abroad, must seem to US both essentially Russian and firmly in the West European tradition. In Vienna the critic Eduard Hanslick was able to complain of the "trivial Cossack cheer" of the finale of the Violin Concerto, but in Russia Tchaikovsky never went far enough to please the self-appointed leader of musical nationalists, Balakirev. While by no means a miniaturist, he nevertheless excelled in his mastery of the smaller forms necessary in ballet, writing music that displayed his remarkable gifts of melody and skill in orchestration.

Recorded in: Stockholm Concert Hall 6-11 June 1994 Producer(s) Ralph Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

The Aradia Baroque Ensemble, Mary Enid Haines & Sharla Nafziger, Sopranos. Conducted by Kevin Mallon. Recorded at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto, Canada October 8-10, 1996. Played on original instruments.

1998 release. Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865-1936) Orchestral works 8, the Seasons, Op. 67; Scenes de Ballet, Op. 52, Scene Dansante, Op.81 performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra Alexander Anissimov conductor. Recorded at Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia in August 1995.

FEENEY: Dracula

Classical Music

Alexander Anissimov was a conductor unfamiliar to me (some may have heard his much-praised Tchaikovsky Cherevichki at Wexford). He keeps the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on their toes: the strings are keener of articulation than their Bolshoi or Kirov counterparts while balances and dynamics are all observed in an end result of greater sophistication than you might expect from this source (with handsome sound to match). Anissimov excels in the grand symphonic unfolding of the first two numbers and the two Entr’actes, over which he takes more time and care than Fedotov [conducting Kirov].

-- Gramophone [8/1996]