Customer Reviews

The Prince's Toys

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A lot of classical guitar music sounds good, and a lot of it is in the Spanish Romantic tradition, or in the Italian Classical style. No surprise, those were the eras in which it was cool to do. This is why most of the great guitarists of this century have generally looked back to those eras for music to play. Even Villa-Lobos, while making a series of works for the guitar, couldn't help looking back. But others like Toru Takemitsu, and Nikita Koshkin, looked to expand the guitar's possibilities.

Being influenced by the 20th century masters Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich, Koshkin is a guitarist who left his rock and roll aspirations behind after hearing Andres Segovia at age 13. But where Segovia laid a standard for tradition, Koshkin has blazed into technical and musical territories which, speaking as a guitarist, makes me burn with envy and embarrassment. It seems outrageous that such a gifted guitarist and composer didn't, or couldn't, make a recording until this recently (1998).

Koshkin's original works are surely to the guitar what Bela Bartok's string quartets were to that medium: surreal, deviously hard to play, and sublime. You can't afford not to check this album out if you're an aspiring guitarist. This guy, for having dropped rock music as a style, sure knows how to rock!

Having heard the piece from John Williams first I didn't know Koshkin ever recorded "Usher Waltz" himself. I'm sure there are other great recordings of the piece but the treat of this album is that Koshkin plays his other, equally dramatic solo guitar works that virtually no one else seems interested in recording. Koshkin's take on his own signature piece is faster and more flamboyant than Williams' and, in my opinion, more fun. An especially interesting piece is "Music for Clocks" that nobody else seems to have recorded and has great contrapuntal writing in it.

It's interesting to finally hear Koshkin play The Prince's Toys, a piece that he slaved over for 6 years. The CD also includes previously unrecorded works: Guitar, Rain, and Piece For Clocks, all of which contribute to a program which hangs well together--nice flow between of pieces. Mikulka's 1985 recording of The Prince's Toys, to whom Koshkin dedicated the piece, is played at about the same tempo as Koshkin's rendition, however, Mikulka stretches out a couple of movements by 30-40 seconds, probably not noticeable to most.

My only quibble is with the amount of music offered here. When you consider that only 54 minutes of disc space was used, there was plenty of room for Merlin's Dream, The Porcelain Tower and The Fall Of Birds, all of which were written long before this recording was made and are rarely recorded. At the minimum, these pieces should have been split between this recording and Koshkin's follow-up recording, The Well-Tempered Clavier, which suffers from program selection problems.

A final note is that if you buy this CD used, be sure that the seller includes the original jewel case, which has a specially made front cover which serves to animate the drawings on the cover of the liner notes. A very unique and interesting design worth having.