Boris Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto: Clarinet Concerto; Signs of the Zodiac

Boris Tchaikovsky (Composer), Timur Mynbayev (Conductor), Olga Solovieva (Performer), Russian Academy of Music Chamber Orchestra (Orchestra), Iana Ivanilova (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Olga Solovieva, Iana Ivanilova
• Orchestra: Russian Academy of Music Chamber Orchestra
• Conductor: Timur Mynbayev
• Composer: Boris Tchaikovsky
• Audio CD (January 17, 2006)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B000CEVU4O
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,823 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really new music which sounds like music, February 24, 2006

By 

Peter Khristov "Composer" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boris Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto: Clarinet Concerto; Signs of the Zodiac (Audio CD)

Exelent CD, and a Piano Concerto is a masterpiece and a "main course" of it's programm. The music of Piano Concerto is not straightly related with romantic music and even with Prokofiev or Shostakovich, but it's also 100% not just music of formal experiment. It's some new way of music thinking and music expression, and music of Boris Tchaikovsky is strongly recomended to one who is looking for some really new music which sounds like music. Performance is perfect, and it could deserve more attention of penetrating critics if the names of composer and performers would sound more familiar for them.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two Hits and a Miss, February 18, 2006

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Boris Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto: Clarinet Concerto; Signs of the Zodiac (Audio CD)

The big piece -- 35 minutes -- here is the Piano Concerto, played to a fare-thee-well by Olga Solovieva and the Russian Academy of Music Chamber Orchestra conducted by Timur Mynbaev. The unfortunate thing is that I, at least, find little in it to maintain my interest. It is reportedly -- and obviously -- based not on melody or harmony but on what the composer calls 'rhythmotifs', which are rhythmic cells that are, in my opinion, done to death. The first movement (of five) is monotonously based on innumerable repetitions of the same note in a square rhythms that eventually make one want to throw something at the stereo speakers. The orchestration is very light and often nearly unnoticeable while the piano pounds out rhythms. If it had the harmonic tartness or rhythmic brutality of Prokofiev or Bartók, things would have been different, but there doesn't seem to be much here but repetition. I will say, so you'll know, that I'm not a big fan of minimalism and perhaps that's the sort of thing B. Tchaikovsky is aiming for here (although the concerto was written in 1971, before minimalism had even achieved a name much less a movement). So be it. Others will find this and the succeeding four movements memorable, I suspect, but I don't.

But the two other works here are winners. The Clarinet Concerto, played beautifully by clarinetist Anton Prischepa, is a delight. The scoring is light -- strings, three trumpets and timpani along with the soloist -- and the work reminds me a bit of Poulenc or the Shostakovich First Piano Concerto, and with jazzy licks like that of the Copland Concerto. There is a significant double-bass obbligato played brilliantly by Pavel Alfyorov. An utter delight. The 'Signs of the Zodiac, Cantata for Soprano, Harpsichord and Strings' from 1974 is another delight. The soprano sings one verse each from four poets Russian poets spanning two centuries (Silentium, by Fyodor Tyatchev; Far Out [Tam, daleko] by Alexander Blok; Cross o' Four Roads [U chetyryokh dorog] by Marina Tsvetaeva; and Signs of the Zodiac [Znaki Zodiaka] by Nikolai Zabolotsky). They take up themes of mortality and eternity. The soprano, Yana Ivanilova, has one of those slightly astringent Russian voices that perfectly fits the verses selected. The excellent harpsichordist (shades of de Falla's Harpsichord Concerto!) is Irina Goncharova.

In spite of my reaction to the Piano Concerto, I think those who have liked Boris Tchaikovsky's music would be well-advised to seek out this budget-priced issue. For others who are new to his music, I'd suggest they might begin, rather, with other issues, like the one of his piano music on Albany (and with the same pianist, Olga Solovieva, who is excellent).

Scott Morrison

5.0 out of 5 stars A Russian Pastoralist?, May 9, 2011

By 

RJAdams - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boris Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto: Clarinet Concerto; Signs of the Zodiac (Audio CD)

The Clarinet Concerto (1957) is melodic, bucolic and sunnier than Finzi's elegiac Concerto and Brahms' autumnal works for the clarinet. It is utterly without the bombast and cynicism of Soviet culture so often reflected in the works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. The Allegro finale combines folkiness, jazz, and neoclassical elements in a fetching and convincing way. Just short of 12 minutes duration and a delight, this is just the prescription for those sated with the concerti of Mozart, Weber, Crusell, Copeland, and various modern English composers.

The Cantata (1974 really a song cycle, or perhaps a concerto for voice), Signs of the Zodiac, is both beautiful and haunting in the manner of some 20th century British based cycles (e.g., Vaughan Williams -- Songs of Travel, Finzi -- Let us Garlands Bring, and Butterworth -- A Shropshire Lad). However, it is as Russian in its sensibilities and lyricism as theirs are British, with Mussorgsky an antecedent. The sweetly lyrical vocal part takes getting used to with its high soprano tessitura but does reinforce the Wunderhorn irony of the quasi-mystical poems that serve as texts. The soprano has the right Fach and manages without distracting strain. The orchestral accompaniment is dramatic, colorful and spicy in an idiom reminiscent of Britten (Les Illuminations).

The Piano Concerto (1971) is not as appealing as the other two works but is beautifully crafted and bears repeated scrutiny well. The overall mood is severe, stripped down, and non-triumphalistic, sort of an anti-piano concerto. So one does not have a Brahms or Tchaikovsky First, but it may just have been the antidote to the steady diet of heroic concerti the Soviet public was largely confined to.

The Mosfilm studio recording is superb.