Fedoseyev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra.

Includes work(s) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Classical Music

This new release features some of the best-loved selections from the catalogue of compositions by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). The works included here are Coronation March, Capriccio Italien, Francesca da Rimini, Romeo and Juliet, and Marche Slave. The Russian National Orchestra performs the works recorded here. The first work performed by the orchestra at its inception more than two decades ago was Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony. It seems fitting that the orchestra has chosen works by this composer to honor its 25th anniversary.

Classical Music

Classical Music

In 1874 Tchaikovsky composed an opera, Vakula the Smith, that like many of his operatic works, failed with the public. Years later in 1885, Tchaikovsky resurrected the work, refashioned it, and renamed it Cherevichki, which translates as The Little Shoes. The plot still centers around Vakula, who is in love with the beautiful Oksana, who has him so wrapped around her little finger that she drives him to thoughts of suicide with her indifferent posturing. Oksana informs Vakula he can again win her love only by securing the slippers worn by the Czarina herself, a task Vakula accomplishes with the aid of the captured and subdued devil. Vakula returns triumphant, and Oksana, true to form, declines the slippers, stating that Vakula's love is treasure enough for her. (Gee, thanks a lot, babe!) Yes, of course there are more characters and subplots involved, but you get the gist of the story.

For this tale Tchaikovsky provided his characteristic melodic, passionate, dramatic music, including quite a few tuneful arias. Actually, a lot of it sounds like Swan Lake, and while there may not be passages of haunting despair of the type found in Eugene Onegin (with its Pathétique pre-echoes), there are plenty of emotionally intense moments, especially from Vakula, sung with tremendous feeling by Valerij Popov. Ekaterina Morosova combines the sweet and the tart with a beautiful voice to bring the facile Oksana to life, while her father, Cub, gets a warmly gruff portrayal by Vladimir Ognovenko.

As in Onegin, Act 3 features a seemingly obligatory extended solo for bass, the character in this case being His Serene Highness, sung in a dull but appropriately ceremonial manner by Grigory Osipov. Gennady Rozhdestvensky again proves his long-held Tchaikovsky credentials, reveling in the score's balletic passages and dramatic climaxes, all the while getting the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari to sound like Russian orchestras of old. The live recording balances the voices (including the excellent chorus) and orchestra very well, bringing the drama right into the theater. The included applause reveals a strangely tepid audience response after each act, except at the very end.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Described by Tchaikovsky as 'lyric scenes', Eugene Onegin receives a spectacular reinterpretation from the Norwegian director Stefan Herheim. His productions create controversy and excitement around Europe, and here he takes Pushkin's story of illusion, disaffection and frustrated love, and places the protagonists - world-weary Onegin and naive, passionate Tatyana - in a triple temporal perspective, referencing the theatrical present, the period of the work's composition, and the pageant of Russia's history. Mariss Janson's, renowned for his mastery of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, conducts this performance from Amsterdam's Muziektheater.

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Summary, the series, is an attempt to reverse the wunderkind principle. Instead of pandering to the musical world along the lines of "faster, higher, further" by serving up younger and younger artists each year, here we ask the question: "As an artist grows in years and maturity, how does his or her view of musical works alter? Do some criteria become less important which maybe were taken too seriously in earlier years? Have new ones come along?" Volume 1: The Bartok Quartet founded in 1957!

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Misha Didyk, Emily Magee, Lado Ataneli, Ludovic Tezier, Elena Zaremba, Ewa Podles, Mikhail Vekua, Fransisco Vas, and Claudia Schneider star in this Gran Teatre del Liceu production of the Tchaikovsky opera conducted by Michael Boder.

Classical Music

Tchaikovsky composed songs throughout his entire career. The diversity of the genres and themes that he explored in musical form in them can be viewed as a lyrical diary mirroring his life as a composer. In the Russian language his songs are referred to as "Romances". From a stylistic point of view, they are similar to the so-called urban romances, which were very much in fashion at the time. Tchaikovsky's aim in his Romances was to express emotions directly and simply and to make them accessible to all listeners. He allowed his own very personal feelings to provide the backdrop to his songs, by concentrating on one dominating psychological motif in the lyric template, which provided him with the suitable musical intonation. German soprano Julia Sukmanova initially studied piano and composition. Later she studied singing, first as a private pupil with the Russian dramatic tenor Donat. She has been decisively influenced by teachers and singers like Montserrat Caball�, Brigitte Fassbaender and Margreet Honig and has attended the master classes of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Pianist Elena Sukmanova lives in Hamburg. She trained as concert pianist with Prof. Leonid Sintsev at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St Petersburg.

It is clear from the title page of the handwritten piano score that Tchaikovsky's popular Variations on a Rococo Theme Op. 33 can be performed with orchestral or piano accompaniment only. The recording with Sergei Istomin on PASSACAILLE uses the handwritten copy of the original piano score with the cello part, which contains numerous informative entries by the composer. Also in the piano trio recorded here, Claire Chevallier plays in proper style on a grand piano made by the St. Petersburg company Jacob Becker in 1877, whose instruments Tchaikovsky has demonstrably highly valued.