Grigory Ovshievich Korchmar's Diptych Concerto for viola, percussions, celesta, and harp is named after a Russian Orthodox Church tradition, with its two movements representing a grieving man and a cold, empty world.
Composer Biography
Orest Alexandrovich Yevlakhov, another composer on this album, studied composition with Dmitry Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory and later headed its composition and orchestration chair.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Galina Ustvolskaya, a composer on this album, called her music 'Musik aus dem schwarzen Loch' (Music from the Black Hole), a metaphor for Leningrad's suffering during the Communist terror and war.
Compositional Technique
Galina Ustvolskaya's Concerto for piano, strings and timpani, her first cataloged work, features a unique one-movement structure with five sections differing in tempo and rhythm, all rendered in slow tempi.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vladislav Alexandrovich Uspensky, a composer on this album, was known for deeply converging different genres, charging 'academic' music with striking themes and writing 'mass genre' works with high professional excellence.
Recording & Production
This album features recordings made by the Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) Recording Studio at the Leningrad Philharmonic Grand Hall and Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) Capella Concert Hall between 1970 and 1983.
Composer Biography
Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya, a composer featured on this album, was born in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1919 and her entire life was connected to this one city.
