Khachaturian: Ode in Memory of Lenin

1. Lermontov, incidental music & suite for orchestra
Composed by Aram Khachaturian
Performed by Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Loris Tjeknavorian

2. Russian Fantasy, for orchestra
Composed by Aram Khachaturian
Performed by Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Loris Tjeknavorian

3. Ode in Memory of Vladimir Ilich Lenin, for orchestra
Composed by Aram Khachaturian
Performed by Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Loris Tjeknavorian

4. Greetings Overture, for orchestra
Composed by Aram Khachaturian
Performed by Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Loris Tjeknavorian

5. Festive Poem (Triumphal Poem), for orchestra
Composed by Aram Khachaturian
Performed by Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Loris Tjeknavorian

Tracks:

Molto Allegro - Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Largo. Andante - Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Allegretto - Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Ode In Memory Of Lenin - Aram Khachaturian
Song-Poem - Naum Walter
Sabre-Dance - Naum Walter

Customer Reviews:

The Unknown Boris Tchaikovsky.......1999-03-28

Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-1996) was among the most important soviet composers who emerged after the 1950s. He studied piano & composition @ the Gnessin School & College of Music. He went on to further his studies at the Moscow Conservatory under Vissarion Shebalin, Shostakovich, Rakov, & Nikolai Myaskovsky from 1943-1949. Shostakovich was in particular impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical development & talent.

Uniquely, Boris Tchaikovsky wrote almost nothing but hugh, monumental pieces (whether orchestral or chamber). His symphony no. II is one example of the scope of his works.

The Second symphony was composed in 1967, the same period which witnessed the composition of Shchedrin's Second symphony, Nikolayev's Fifth symphony, Vainberg's Sixth symphony, Shostakovich thirteenth symphony, & Lyatoshynsky Fourth &Fifth symphonies.

Tchaikosky's Second is cast in three movements & its duration is close to 52 minutes. It is a very modern work, although its idiom is not avant-garde. It begins with the playing of the pizzicato of the strings (though it sounds like balalaikas). The full strings enters before shortly joined by full orchestra. One theme is followed by the next (like variations, although not traditionally). Towards the end of the first movement, Tchaikovsky quoted fragments from Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, Beethoven's String Quartet in C Minor, Bach's St. Matthew Passion (alto aria), & Schumann's In der Nacht. The second movement is quiet & meditative. Yet one notice the passion in the middle of the movement. The third movement (finale) is in a form of a rondo, with varied themes (not as much as the first movement). After passages of full force, the symphony ends quietly.

The performance of Kyrill Kondrashin & the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra was both blistering & convicted. The winds especially play its part with perfection &preparedness (there are some difficult & damanding passages for the winds). The recording, slightly raw & thin, is enjoyable enough.

The Compact Disc also contains three works of Aram Khachaturian: Ode in Memory of Lenin, Song Poem for Violin & Piano, & Sabre-Dance (arr. for piano & violin). The Ode is the most interesting of the three, fully substantive & sonorious. The recording of Ode with the composer conducting the Boishoi Theater Orchestra is tolarable though not as atmospheric as Kondrashin's Tchaikovsky (excessive noise reductions claimed victims of many Melodiya/Russian Disc recordings & reissues). The Song Poem is attractive & accessible.

Tracks:

Lermontov Ste: First Movt: Intro (A Dirge For The Poet)
Lermontov Ste: Second Movt: Mazurka
Lermontov Ste: Third Movt: Valse
Lermontov Ste: Fourth Movt: Intermezzo-Finale
Russian Fant
Ode In Memory Of Lenin
Greeting Ov
Festive Poem

Poem to Stalin/Ode in Memory of Lenin/3 Arias

Average customer rating:

A Guilty Pleasure?

Poem to Stalin/Ode in Memory of Lenin/3 Arias

Manufacturer: Citadel
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Arias | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Choruses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000DGPR
Release Date: 1998-10-27

Customer Reviews:

A Guilty Pleasure?.......2000-11-08

At least one musical friend of mine will not listen to Furtwängler's 1942 account of Beethoven's Ninth, as high officials of the National Socialist Party sat in attendance when the Reichs Rundfunk recorded the concert. Another equally musical friend will not listen to "Carmina Burana," as its composer, Carl Orff, seems to have made his score congenial to National Socialist ideals of "folkish art." On the other hand, a staunchly anti-Communist acquaintance who fled Hungary after the abortive uprising of 1956 listens with interest to Prokofiev's "Cantata on the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution." "The text is repugnant," he says, "but the music is Prokofiev's." And it is the music to which he turns his ear. The music, then, must justify the works by Aram Khachaturyan (1903-1978) on this disc of his overtly Stalinist oeuvre; for anyone aware of events unfolding in the USSR in the decade when Khachaturyan wrote these scores will need to "bracket" (as the phenomenologists say) the verbal element of the listening experience. The earliest of the three, "Poem to Stalin," comes from 1938, just after "the Man of Steel" had used the show-trials to complete the slaughter of his old revolutionary comrades, along with several thousand other citizens of the Socialist Republics whom the Leader and Teacher's judicial henchmen had accused of "sabotage," "wrecking," and "counter-revolutionary activity." (Prokofiev's "Zhdravitsa" [1939] emerged in the same grisly aftermath.) The "Poem" shows the same general pattern as the purely orchestral "Triumphal Poem" (1957) of twenty years later: A chain of singable, folk-inflected melodies leading up to a brassy apotheosis of the Leader and Teacher. The tunes boast the exotic flavor that we expect from this Russian-Georgian-Armenian composer, and as long as one pays no heed to the words, it is exciting in a cinematic way. The "Ode in Memory of Lenin" (1948) began, indeed, as the projected accompaniment of a motion picture. The date once again possesses significance, for 1948 marks the moment of "Zhdanovshchina," the renewal of Stalin's repressive measures against Soviet artists, including ironically Khachaturyan himself. Not quite as striking melodically as the "Poem," the "Ode" nevertheless makes its point with more cogency. At about ten minutes, it needs only half the performing-time of the earlier piece. The "Three Concert Arias" constitute a "concerto for high voice" to join the other solo-with-orchestra scores that carry Khachaturyan's name. While the three texts have nothing to do with each other (but at least none mentions Stalin!), the melodies (as always) exert considerable appeal. This material is partly duplicated on a new ASV disc with Loris Tjeknavorian and an Armenian orchestra.

Khachaturian: Ode of Joy; Music from Spartacus; Ode in Memory of Lenin

Average customer rating:

Khachaturian: Ode of Joy; Music from Spartacus; Ode in Memory of Lenin

Manufacturer: Delos Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ballets | Ballets & Dances | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000D9PN3
Release Date: 2003-10-28

Tracks: