No 戴佩妮

Kabalevsky - Piano Sonata No.3 & 24 Preludes - Pietro Bonfilio (2017) {Brilliant Classics 95256BR Official Digital Download}
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© 2017 Brilliant Classics | 95256BR
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Piano

Once considered in the same breath as Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Kabalevsky’s star has waned somewhat (the same fate has befallen both Myaskovsky and Khachaturian), both in his native Russia and farther West, where he is primarily remembered for his exuberant orchestral potboiler, the overture he wrote to an opera on a Romain Rolland story, Colas Breugnon. The opera won both a Lenin Prize and Rolland’s approval – no small feat – but has been completely forgotten. However, the offbeat rhythms that made the overture an instant hit also lend an upbeat, funky character to the opening movement of the Third Piano Sonata.

Since his 2007 Cleveland International Piano Competition victory, Alexander Ghindin has attracted attention for the powerful technique, wide dynamic range, and ardent temperament he brings to Russian repertoire, as this Scriabin recital amply bears out. The various Poèmes are massively textured, generously pedaled, and generally quite spacious in relation to, say, Pascal Amoyel's chaster, more classically proportioned interpretations.

LSO, Gardiner - Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 2, Op. 52, 'Lobgesang' (2017) {B&W Society of Sound no. 83 Digital Download 16-44.1}
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© 2017 LSO / B&W Society of Sound | LSO88 / SoS no. 83
Classical / Romantic / Symphony

In October 2016, to bring his acclaimed Mendelssohn symphonies cycle to a rousing conclusion, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the London Symphony Orchestra – accompanied by Lucy Crowe, Jurgita Adamonytė, Michael Spyres and the Monteverdi Choir – gave two performances of the composer’s symphony-cantata, ‘Lobgesang’. Also known as ‘Hymn of Praise’, it sits slightly uneasily with Mendelssohn’s four other symphonies, with its extended last movement involving soloists and chorus. However, the idea was not without precedent – the work has its roots in both Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (‘Choral’), and Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette.

"He will quickly be forgotten." That was Rimsky-Korsakov's unkind but not inaccurate prediction made shortly after his pupil Anton Arensky's death from tuberculosis at the age of 35. His prediction was unkind in the sense that Arensky's stylish and lyrical works rank with those of Liadov, Kalinnikov, and Ippolitov-Ivanov for melodic charm and orchestral color. But his prediction was accurate to the extent that there have been few performances or recordings of Arensky's music in the century since his death in 1906. Indeed, aside from this undated recording with Evgeny Svetlanov leading the Academic Symphony Orchestra, there has apparently been only one other recording of Arensky's symphonies in the past half century – Valery Polyansky's on Chandos – and none before that at all. For die-hard fans of Russian music, this state of affairs is a shame because as Svetlanov's performances demonstrate, Arensky's symphonies deserve to be heard.