Rostropovich, Gutman, Ginovker - Leningrad Cello Concertos: Tishchenko, Tzitovich, Falik (2020) [24/96]

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Rostropovich, Gutman, Ginovker - Leningrad Cello Concertos: Tishchenko, Tzitovich, Falik (2020) [24/96]

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More from the unique Leningrad/ Soviet Series featuring here top Russian cello stars

The works of Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko (1939-2010) have a unique positon in the panorama of today’s art. There is no need to be reminded how difcult was the development of music in the 20th century. Probably the greatest trial it had to pass was the urge towards radical innovatons, which ofen led to the nearly complete loss of an individual style. Tishchenko’s music has a rare quality – it is instantaneously identfable, literally by the frst notes and bars. They form a world imperiously establishing its own laws and demanding maximum concentraton of thought from the listener. Integrity, scale of artstc issues, and fnally a constant feeling of artstc responsibility - such are the key points of his personality.

The Cello Concerto writen by Vladimir Tsytovich in 1981 has two movements. The frst one (Lento) is akin to an aria for cello and strings, a monologue of cello solo supported by the orchestra’s expressive sound. In the second movement (Allegro. Presto), the musical landscape changes dramatcally. Grotesque playing, ragged rhythms, and unexpected tmbral similarites involving the extreme registers of the winds in the orchestra – all this creates a picture of some cosmic saturnalia, rushes into everyday life, and destroys it. Gradually, the rhythmic pulsaton becomes more and more organized; a toccata episode (Presto) appears, which afer the culminaton develops into a coda where the frst movement’s reappears for a short tme. But the toccata gets the upper hand, fnishing the concerto with the powerful sound of the whole orchestra.

Yuri Alexandrovich Falik (1936-2009) belongs to a generaton whose creatve and artstc consciousness was formed in the 1960s. He was of the era of Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’. Falik cannot be irrevocably atached either to innovators or to traditonalists; he did not invent a new sound system, but he was not chained with traditon either. An excellent maestro possessing all kinds of composer’s technique, he was selectve in his attude towards newly-invented techniques – he accepted them for the purposes of his artstc concepton only. He looked for, and found, latent reserves in traditonal genres and forms. The things in the foreground were always vibrancy of concept, persuasive power of solutons, thrilling plot and suspense of musical development, and beautful sound.