The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Great to finally see this release...  its been floating around via radio broadcast for a while...

Maximilian Steinberg (1883-1946)

Violin Concerto, Op. 37 (1946) SL
 1. Allegro molto
 2. Lento non troppo
 3. Allegretto


Symphony No. 4 "Turksib". OP. 24 (1933)
 4. Across Sands and Mountains
 5. Rhapsody Songs of the Past and the Present
 6. Guiding the Steel Road
 7. Chaitan-araba (Devil's Chariot)

 Royal Scottish National Orchestra
 Martin Yates - Conductor
 Sergey Levitin - Violin
 World Premiere Recordings

 Maximilian Steinberg was a pupil – and son-in-law – of Rimsky-Korsakov in pre-Revolutionary Russia, exhibiting all the orchestral and lyrical characteristics one might expect of such a heritage. (Steinberg himself would later be a teacher of Shostakovich.) The Turksib Symphony – his fourth – completed in 1933, celebrates the building and completion of the Turkestan-Siberia Railway. Using Kazakh folk melodies and in four richly scored movements, it is an inspiring discovery. Contrastingly, Steinberg’s final work, the post-war Violin Concerto, has a valedictory and autumnal feeling, and soloist Sergey Levitin encompasses the virtuosic writing with complete authority while finding the music’s passionate and romantic manner.

 CDLX7341

Dear Hibbard
I bought it.I highly appreciately influence of "eastern" folklore in russian music.It isn't a correct statement because a lot of russians composers like Rakhmaninov,Balakirev or Rimski are of "oriental" Heritage and musical developements of these people are mainly dued to russian school in the soviet period.
I may mention Gliere Shah Senem and Gyulsara,Brusilovsky,Yudakov,Vladimir Vlasov,Albert Leman,Boris Shekhter,Vasilenko surely a far to complete listing
Hoping for more
Best

I'm impressed with this recording... I see that Boosey & Hawkes is the publisher for Sym #4.  Perhaps the composers Estate purchased back the rights to the symphony in 1991 and then licensed it  to Boosey....  idk. interesting tho

some info from Wiki:

Steinberg was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Vilnius (then Russian Empire). His father, Osey (Hosea) Steinberg, was a leading Hebraist. In 1901 he went to Saint Petersburg, to study biology at Saint Petersburg University. He graduated in 1906. In the meantime he also started studying at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He entered Anatoly Lyadov's harmony class, moving on to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's harmony class and Alexander Glazunov's counterpoint class. His considerable talent in composition soon showed, encouraged especially by his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1908. Fellow student Igor Stravinsky felt disgruntled at the apparent favor of Steinberg by Rimsky-Korsakov over him.[1] Nevertheless, Steinberg named Stravinsky one of his closest friends when the latter had made a big name in the West, a move Stravinsky strongly resented.

In 1908 Steinberg married Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter Nadezhda. Rimsky-Korsakov died the same year, and Steinberg edited and completed Rimsky-Korsakov's monumental treatise, Principles of Orchestration, later published in Paris. Steinberg became first a lecturer, then in 1915 Professor of Composition and Orchestration, at the Conservatory, a post his father-in-law had held. He held numerous other posts at the Conservatory; among other things, he was, from 1934 to 1939 a deputy director, before he went into retirement in 1946. Steinberg played an important role in Soviet music life as a teacher of composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich, Galina Ustvolskaya and Yuri Shaporin. He died in 1946 in Leningrad.


Steinberg was considered first as a great hope of Russian music, and was occasionally even more highly estimated than his student colleague, Igor Stravinsky. He rejected Stravinsky's and other modern styles, usually preferring the style of his teachers and showing the influence of the nationalistic Mighty Handful as well. His composing technique is handled with firm control and brilliant orchestration - these features have been noticed most often about his compositions.

Many of his works use world literature for their subjects. The dictates of socialist realism as they affected music starting in 1932 meant no great changes for him, since his style already was mostly in conformity with what was requested. He tended to select the topics of his programmatic works more often now on national topics, and let himself be influenced more often by musical and literary folklore. As a composer, Steinberg is today little known; it did not help that even at the time he was considered eclectic. More importance is attached to him now as a teacher.

His first two symphonies have been recorded by Neeme Järvi for the company Deutsche Grammophon.

Passion Week, Steinberg's choral settings for Russian Orthodox liturgical texts in Church Slavonic, has recently been performed and recorded for the first time.

Turksib

Directed by
Viktor Alexandrovitsh Turin

Written by
Yakov Aron
 Aleksandr Macheret
Viktor Shklovsky
 Victor A. Turin

Cinematography
Boris Frantsisson
 Yevgeni Slavinsky


Production
 company
 
Vostokkino
 


Release date
 1929

Country
Soviet Union

Language
Russian


 


Turksib still.
Turksib (Russian: Турксиб) is a 1929 Soviet documentary film directed by Viktor Alexandrovitsh Turin documenting the building of the Turkestan–Siberia Railway.  The rail line stretched north east from Tashkent to Almaty and on to Novosibirsk. The film contrasts the open desert and sand, with the order of a rails and movement of machines.   The Turkic people ride horses and camels and rear sheep. This drama is set against the dry steppe as it is converted into a cotton growing region.

"Turksib" was particularly appreciated by the classic British and Canadian documentary filmmaker John Grierson, who prepared the English version of the picture.

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by the British Film Institute in 2011 as part of The Soviet Influence: From Turksib to Night Mail, with a newly commissioned soundtrack by Guy Bartell of British group Bronnt Industries Kapital.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seg7Kz-YYUU

Whole film is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ueZ_44aEfU