Russian Sketches (Incls 'Procession of the Sardar' & 'Francesca da Rimini')

Russian Sketches (Incls 'Procession of the Sardar' & 'Francesca da Rimini') cover $21.00 Out of Stock
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Russian Sketches (Incls 'Procession of the Sardar' & 'Francesca da Rimini')
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra / David Zinman

[ Telarc Classics / CD ]

Release Date: Friday 20 July 2007

This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.

David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony perform Russian favorites with finesse and style in spectacular sound.

In 1837, Mikhail Glinka began work on a new opera based on Pushkin's poem Russlan and Ludmilla. The poem told a fantastic tale of intrigue and counter-intrigue, heroism and magic set in pagan Russia. Glinka's music, full of chromaticism and unusual harmonies, convincingly depicts the poem's supernatural nature. This opera, with an overture that has become a favorite of audiences around the world, profoundly influenced such Russian composers as Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and even Stravinsky.

Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov was a second-generation heir to Glinka's nationalistic school of composition. He was a director of the Moscow Conservatory for nearly twenty years. His colorful Caucasian Sketches performed on this recording is a suite in four movements that memoralizes his stay in the pituresque Georgian Caucasus.

The Russian Easter Overture, Op. 36, was written concurrently with Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous work, Scheherazade. For the context of the Russian Easter Overture, Rimsey-Korsakov was inspired by two Biblical passages that preface the score: Psalm 68 and a passage from the gospel of St. Mark. The music was based on an eighteenth-century collection of Orthodox Church canticles.

Only three weeks after Tchaikovsky first read the fifth canto of Dante's Inferno in 1867, he composed the symphonic poem, Francesca da Rimini, about its tragic heroine. The work gained immediate success and was performed widely throughout Europe. Like Francesca da Rimini, Tchaikovsky's most popular opera, Eugene Onegin, portrayed a tragic love story. The Polonaise, heard on this recording, was taken from the last act at a grand ball held at a palace in St. Petersburg.

Tracks:

Glinka: Overture to Russian and Ludmilla

Ippolitov-Ivanov: Caucasian Sketches, Op. 10:
I. In the Mountain Pass
II. In the Village
III. In the Mosque
IV. Procession of the Sardar

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Overture, Op. 36

Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32

Tchaikovsky: Polonaise from Eugene Onegin