Yuri Falik, while not inventing a new sound system, selectively adopted newly-invented styles for his artistic conceptions and found latent reserves in traditional genres.
Composer Biography
Sergey Slonimsky, another composer featured, was a professor of Composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory since 1976 and received numerous honors, including People's Artist of Russia.
Compositional Technique
Sergey Slonimsky was among the first in the USSR to use aleatoric music, dodecaphony, quarter tones, clusters, and polystylism, often combining them with archaic Russian folklore.
Composer Biography
Yuri Falik, a composer on this album, initially pursued a brilliant career as a cellist, winning an international competition in Helsinki, before dedicating himself to composition.
Compositional Technique
Composers on this album embraced sophisticated rhythms, harsh dissonances, atonality, and timbral diversity, moving away from traditional forms towards a diversity of compositional solutions.
Historical Context
The album features choral compositions from the 1960s-1970s by Leningrad composers, part of the 'men of the Sixties' generation who sought radical renewal in national music.
Recording & Production
This album was recorded at Capella Concert Hall, Leningrad, across several years from 1974 to 1983, with Felix Gurdzhy as the engineer.
You might also enjoy...
Whitacre & Clyne: Songs in Surround
Palimpsest: New Works From Old For Saxophone and Choir
Midnight Stories: Contemporary Music of Polish Composers
The Tower and the Garden
Rivers: John Barber
Night Lights: Choral Music by John Barber
Sempiternam
Precious Things: Choral Music by Bernard Hughes
Of Mere Being
An Hour to Dance
Full of Grace
Wolfgang Rihm: Passionstexte No. 1-7 (Kammerchor Saarbrücken: Ultimum)
