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Assorted items => Coming broadcasts and listen-later links => Topic started by: guest2 on October 11, 2014, 11:50:14 am



Title: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: guest2 on October 11, 2014, 11:50:14 am
Slonimsky (presumably Sergei): Second Piano Concerto:

http://meloman.ru/concert/orkestr-moskovskoj-filarmoniiyurij-simonovbrekaterina-mechetina/ (http://meloman.ru/concert/orkestr-moskovskoj-filarmoniiyurij-simonovbrekaterina-mechetina/)

He has written ten symphonies: this particularly academic genre dominated Slonimsky’s output of the 1980s. Although the second of these appeared 20 years after the first, the following six were written over just three years. Various models of sonata-symphonic cycle are presented there: lyrical-epic, pastoral, those with signs of narrative drama of the novelistic type (for example, the Fourth Symphony, dedicated to the composer’s father, the writer Mikhail Slonimsky). In the later symphonies he displays a tendency towards post-Mahlerian massive cycles; the tragic Ninth Symphony depicts the catastrophes which have befallen humanity in the 20th century. The same theme is depicted through mythological images in the symphonic fresco Apollon i Marsiy (‘Apollo and Marsyas’), commissioned by Ricordi. The programmatic Tenth Symphony Krugi Ada (‘Circles of Hell’) – written under the influence of the Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri – is divided into nine parts (‘circles’) which follow without a break. The complex numerical symbolism of Dante’s poem is reflected in the serial transposition of rows, and the composer pays great attention to effects of timbre and the various ways of creating sound on wind instruments. Slonimsky’s continued interest in the problems facing humanity and in tragic conflicts is reflected in his five operas, which represent various types of operatic drama in different periods of world history and literature.


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: cjvinthechair on October 11, 2014, 09:35:01 pm
Excellent concert, thank you !


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: mjkFendrich on October 11, 2014, 09:35:23 pm
Dear Gerard,

thanks for alerting us of this Moscow premiere (especially for fans of this great composer like me) ! 
Btw., your added informations are quite outdated (as is the composer's own home page) - e.g. the
latest symphony available from classical-music-online already carries number 32 and his Symphony No.33
is available from Slonimsky's own (??) YT channel:

http://youtu.be/t6g6RHiO7qw (http://youtu.be/t6g6RHiO7qw)


One source containing some more recent informations about him is

       http://www.remusik.org/en/slonimsky/ (http://www.remusik.org/en/slonimsky/)

Downloadable mkv files of the above mentioned concert featuring Slonimsky's 2nd Piano Concerto are also available from

http://intoclassics.net/news/2014-09-18-36708 (http://intoclassics.net/news/2014-09-18-36708)




Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: guest2 on October 12, 2014, 01:23:37 am
I'm most grateful for the pointers to up-to-date information, and especially for the download links!


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: Neil McGowan on October 12, 2014, 01:36:34 pm
Slonimsky was greatly supported by the Bolshoi Theatre, paticularly during the 1970s - when his ballet ICARUS achieved great success, and was toured internationally by the Bolshoi

The Bolshoi also commissioned and staged his earlier operas, notably THE MASTER & MARGARITA - whose music is adventurous, but which suffered from a (rather unstandably) chaotic libretto fashioned from Bulgakov's enormous and multi-layered epic novel.

Thereafter Slonimsky somewhat fell from favour at the Bolshoi - ironically, as a composer once regarded as "rather risky" at the Bolshoi, and then tarred with the brush of being one of the "old guard".

I hope he gets some kind of retrospective while he's still alive?  He certainly deserves one.  I am translating a rather weighty tome for the Bolshoi at the moment - a history of the Bolshoi Ballet during the Soviet era.  Slonimsky comes out of it rather well (so far - I've only done the first third of the book so far).  I wonder if they will ever revive his works?  The productions are all so catastrophically old now, that they'd need new productions to secure any success as a staging.

Worth mentioning, of course, that he's also a distinguished musicologist, teacher, and critic.


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: Gauk on October 13, 2014, 08:36:51 am
His brother Nicholas, best known as a musicologist (and a witty one) also composed, but AFAIK, only small-scale piano works, about which he was unduly modest. I did hear him play some of them once in London. He wore a tie that looked like a salmon hanging down his shirt front.


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: ahinton on October 13, 2014, 10:36:48 am
His brother Nicholas, best known as a musicologist (and a witty one) also composed, but AFAIK, only small-scale piano works, about which he was unduly modest. I did hear him play some of them once in London. He wore a tie that looked like a salmon hanging down his shirt front.
I thought that Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was Sergei's uncle.


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: Jolly Roger on October 14, 2014, 04:13:35 am
I'm most grateful for the pointers to up-to-date information, and especially for the download links!
check here as well..
http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Slonimsky/985


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: Gauk on October 14, 2014, 08:19:53 am
His brother Nicholas, best known as a musicologist (and a witty one) also composed, but AFAIK, only small-scale piano works, about which he was unduly modest. I did hear him play some of them once in London. He wore a tie that looked like a salmon hanging down his shirt front.
I thought that Nicolas Slonimsky (1894-1995) was Sergei's uncle.

Sorry, brain not engaged ...


Title: Re: Slonimsky - Piano Concerto 2
Post by: Jolly Roger on October 16, 2014, 01:14:13 am
I'm most grateful for the pointers to up-to-date information, and especially for the download links!
check here as well..
http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Slonimsky/985
and Google Chrome to translate this search:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%D0%A1%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B5%D0%B9+%D0%A1%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9&page=2