Oleg Solokov

In the 1930s an international chain reaction of disparate elements led to a creative collision in the U.S.A growing sense of the AMERICAN in American music burst into full flower as Vienna met Hollywood and classical met jazz. This album celebrates this amazing development in American music. Growing up in the Boston area, Helen Chang Haertzen studied under Bo Youp Hwang and Roman Totenberg. She attended Philadelphia s Curtis Institute, the Salzburg Mozarteum and the San Francisco Conservatory. Her principal teachers also included Szymon Goldberg, Felix Galimir, Ruggiero Ricci and Camilla Wicks. Haertzen was a prizewinner of the Karol Lipinski-Wieniawski Competition in Poland. In 2017, the Minnesota State Arts Board awarded her the Artist Initiative Grant. She is joined on this release by Denis Evstuhin, Silver Ainomae, and Oleg Levin.

Firma Melodiya presents recordings of 20th century cello music performed by Oleg Vedernikov and Alexey Goribol. The name of Alexey Goribol, a pianist, public figure, Honoured Artist of Russia and organizer of numerous festivals and music projects is well known to the domestic and foreign listeners, while the name of Oleg Vedernikov whose life ended up so tragically in 2015 is less known to a wide audience. This album is dedicated to the memory of the remarkable cellist.

Oleg Marshev’s well-recorded, stylish playing brings out the best in Sauer’s picture-postcard miniatures. Emil von Sauer (1862-1942) was a Liszt pupil who achieved an enduring celebrity status as a pianist. Alas, with few exceptions, his compositions are mostly undistinguished, apt to chatter on long after they have run their course. At the same time one is grateful to Oleg Marshev’s stylish and eloquent advocacy, though even he cannot make you believe that the sonatas’ derivative material deserves such a strenuous workout.

Firma Melodiya presents recordings of Brahms and Prokofiev concertos performed by Natalia Gutman and Oleg Kagan. One of the worlds best cellists, a Peoples Artist of the USSR, and an owner of the State Prize of Russia, Natalia Gutman received four competition prizes when she was a student.