Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov

What we have here are Miaskovsky’s 27 symphonies with two overtures, two early tone poems (one after Poe; the other, Shelley), three sinfoniettas, one serenade, one Divertissement, one Concertino Lirico, one Slav Rhapsody and a piece called Links. It’s all the music for orchestra apart from the two concertos and choral works with orchestra (Kirov is With Us and Kremlin by Night). Note that the version of the Sixth Symphony here is the ……

Rob Barnett @ Musicweb-international.com

What we have here are Miaskovsky’s 27 symphonies with two overtures, two early tone poems (one after Poe; the other, Shelley), three sinfoniettas, one serenade, one Divertissement, one Concertino Lirico, one Slav Rhapsody and a piece called Links. It’s all the music for orchestra apart from the two concertos and choral works with orchestra (Kirov is With Us and Kremlin by Night). Note that the version of the Sixth Symphony here is the ……

Rob Barnett @ Musicweb-international.com

The performances on this 2-CD set were recorded during Piano Masterworks, a series of six concerts given by Nikolai Demidenko in Wigmore Hall, London, between January and June 1993. Devised by Ates Orga, under the patronage of The Lord Birkett, sponsored by Lloyds Private Banking, these recitals ranged across 250 years of keyboard music, instrumental technique and the development of modern piano resource - from Scarlatti to Gubaidulina. As a concept the series was modelled on nineteenth-century Romantic practice. In Paris, between 1873 and 1877, Charles-Valentin Alkan gave regular 'Petits Concerts de Musique Classique' -six recitals each, surveying the repear rtoire from Couperin, Bach, Handel and Scarlatti to Weber, Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn. Later, the Russian Anton Rubinstein created a cycle of seven Historical Recitals with which he took his farewell of Europe in the mid-1880s. At over three hours individually, these embraced a repertoire from Byrd and John Bull to Balakirev and Tchaikovsky. Like Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, too, was historically aware, his programming ranging from Bach to Liapunov.
Within a framework selectively subjective, Piano Masterworks sought to present an historical overview, offering a panorama of changing styles, aesthetic values and imaginative responses. The series was launched in Northern Ireland during 1991/92, opening at the Belfast Festival and continuing under the auspices of Queen's University, Belfast, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op. 31, is a musical work by Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of his two major unaccompanied choral works (the other being his All-Night Vigil). The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the primary worship service of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Rachmaninoff composed the work in July, 1910 at his summer estate Ivanovka, following his American tour of 1909. Writing to his friend Nikita Morozov, Rachmaninoff said of the work, "I have been thinking about the Liturgy for a long time and for a long time I strove to write it.