Classical Russian - for real!
How often do we stereotype nations by assigning a particular style to their music? I've been provoked to think this by discovering a wonderful disc of 18th-century Russian music for chamber orchestra, 'Concertino' - composers are Evstgney Fomin (1761-1800), Dmitri Bortnyansky (1751-1825, more often associated with Orthodox choral music), and Alexander Aliabiev (1787-1851) - on the MCA Classics label (AED-10370). This has been deleted, but I think anyone interested can fairly easily find a second-hand copy if they Google around: the performers are The Chamber Ensemble of the Moscow Philharmonic Society (artistic director Andrei Korsakov).
Anyway, the point is that it's not just bog-standard imitation Classical (as in Mozart-Haydn era) music, but some very engaging and inventive music which is lovely to listen to yet not what one would automatically associate with 'Russian' music. For that we think of the bold orchestral colours of a Borodin, the stygian gloom and sentimentality of Musorgsky, the brightness and passion of Tchaikovsky (yes, yes, yes, I'm type-casting as I write, but you get my drift). Not elegance, grace and wit such as I can hear in the 'Concertino' album. This is music well worth hearing. But how often do we only gravitate to music which conforms with the stereotypes we expect?
Take English music. Generally it's thought that it should either go with the pomp and swagger of Elgar, succeeded by Walton; or the pastoral ruminations of Vaughan Williams, Finzi and Butterworth. Britten is the grand exception - the 'one international composer' Britain has produced this past century. So where do composers like Oliver Knussen, Constant Lambert, Simon Bainbridge and Michael Finnessy fit into this...
Anyway, the point is that it's not just bog-standard imitation Classical (as in Mozart-Haydn era) music, but some very engaging and inventive music which is lovely to listen to yet not what one would automatically associate with 'Russian' music. For that we think of the bold orchestral colours of a Borodin, the stygian gloom and sentimentality of Musorgsky, the brightness and passion of Tchaikovsky (yes, yes, yes, I'm type-casting as I write, but you get my drift). Not elegance, grace and wit such as I can hear in the 'Concertino' album. This is music well worth hearing. But how often do we only gravitate to music which conforms with the stereotypes we expect?
Take English music. Generally it's thought that it should either go with the pomp and swagger of Elgar, succeeded by Walton; or the pastoral ruminations of Vaughan Williams, Finzi and Butterworth. Britten is the grand exception - the 'one international composer' Britain has produced this past century. So where do composers like Oliver Knussen, Constant Lambert, Simon Bainbridge and Michael Finnessy fit into this...
posted by Pierre at 3:50 AM
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