Catoire

Chamber music by Taneyev, Arensky, Shostakovich and Catoire. Chances are the you have heard of the first two composers. But have you ever heard any of their chamber music? And Catoire? Well, this self-taught composer has been a well-hidden treasure whose small out-put is rarely performed.
Russian born violinist Boris Tsoukkerman introduced Catoire's interesting chamber music to some of his Dutch colleagues. As a result several recordings were made to share their enthusiasm about this repertoire with a wider audience. At the time none other that Tchaikovsky admonished Catoire to continue composing. And later on both Arensky and Taneyev advised him on his work. And Rachmaninorr too liked Catoire's music

With his Op. 44 quintet from 1842, Robert Schumann transformed the constellation of piano and string quartet from one that just served as a showcase for the pianist into a true chamber ensemble. Following his example, Brahms and Dvořák produced their own masterly quintets, and during the 20th century composers as diverse as Elgar, Fauré and Shostakovich added to the short list of piano quintets that get regular performances. On the rather longer list of rarely heard quintets we find those recorded here, by pianist Bengt Forsberg and a quartet of some of Sweden's finest string players. Both works were composed during the 1910s, and straddle in different ways the divide between post-romanticism and modernism. Of French descent, the Russian composer Georgy Catoire studied the piano in Moscow as well as Berlin and it is primarily his piano music that is heard today. With its original use of harmony and inventive rhythmic structure, the quintet is nevertheless one of the most seductive works in Catoire’s output.

Although the originality of Georgi Catoire's musical language paved the way for Russian modernism, his output still followed the artistic ideals of Russia and not the new culture of the Soviet Republic. His highly expressive work is characterised by polyphonic density, heightened expressiveness, variety of colour, and a wide rhythmic and harmonic mix. Catoire's music was rarely performed in his day, his name being largely unknown. He left behind 36 works, including symphonic pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, songs and piano cycles. This music was written in the fin de siècle style, which combined brilliance and nobility with fragility.

Hyperion's series of recordings of Bach transcriptions continues with this superlative release by Hamish Milne. While earlier volumes had featured the transcriptions of Busoni, Feinberg, Friedman, and Grainger, this volume features transcriptions by Russian composers. And, as with earlier volumes, the transcriptions reveal more about the transcriber than they do about the composer. In the case of Siloti's transcriptions of the Prelude in B minor and the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite, we find a transcriber of strength and delicacy, of massive sonorities and ethereal melodies.