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Fractured Surfaces. Alexei Liubimov performs piano pieces by the most prominent Soviet avangarde composers of the 50-ies and the 60-ies: Arvo Part, Kuldar Sink, Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov, etc. Born in Paide, Estonia in 1935, Pärt's musical studies began in 1954 at the Tallinn Music Middle School, interrupted less than a year later while he fulfilled his National Service obligation as oboist and side-drummer in an army band. He returned to Middle School for a year before advancing to the Tallinn Conservatory in 1957 where his composition teacher was Professor Heino Eller. Pärt started work as a recording engineer with Estonian Radio, wrote music for the stage and received numerous commisions for film scores so that, by the time he graduated from the Conservatory in 1963, he could already be considered a professional composer. A year before leaving, he won first prize in the All-Union Young Composers' Competition for a children's cantata, Our Garden, and an oratorio, Stride of The World. Living in the old Soviet Union, Pärt had little access to what was happening in contemporary Western music but, despite such isolation, the early 1960s in Estonia saw many new methods of composition being brought into use and Pärt was at the fore-front; his Nekrolog of 1960 was the first Estonian composition to employ serial technique. He continued with serialism through to the mid 60s in pieces such as the 1st and 2nd Symphonies and Perpetuum Mobile, but ultimately tired of its rigours and moved on to experiment, in works such as Collage on B-A-C-H, with collage techniques. Official judgement of Pärt's music veered between extremes, with certain works being praised while others, for example the Credo of 1968, were banned. This would prove to be the last of his collage pieces and after its composition, Pärt chose to enter the first of several periods of contemplative silence, also using the time to study French and Franco-Flemish choral part music from the 14th to 16th centuries - Machaut, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin. At the very beginning of the '70's, he wrote a few transitional compositions in the spirit of early European polyphony, the 3rd Symphony of 1971 being an example: "a joyous piece of music" but not yet "the end of my despair and search." Pärt turned again to self-imposed silence, during which time he delved back through the medievalism of his 3rd Symphony and through plainchant to the very dawn of musical invention. He re-emerged in 1976 after a transformation so radical as to make his previous music almost unrecognisable as that of same composer. The technique he invented, or discovered, and to which he has remained loyal, practically without exception, he calls tintinnabuli (from the Latin, little bells), which he describes thus: "I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements - with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials - with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation." The basic guiding principle behind tintinnabulation of composing two simultaneous voices as one line - one voice moving stepwise from and to a central pitch, first up then down, and the other sounding the notes of the triad - made its first public appearance in the short piano piece, Für Alina. While typically in tintinnabuli the melodic voice is based on an abstract procedure or derived from text, here the melody is freely composed, but with the two voices irrevocably joined according to the tintinnabuli principle. The right hand plays notes from the scale of B minor, while the left hand plays notes from the B minor triad. There is only one exception, marked by a single flower drawn in the score, where the left hand plays a new note - a C sharp. Having found his voice, there was a subsequent rush of new works and three of the 1977 pieces (Fratres, Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa) are still amongst his most highly regarded. As Pärt's music began to be performed in the west and he continued to struggle against Soviet officialdom, his frustration ultimately forced him, his wife Nora and their two sons, to emigrate in 1980. They never made it to their intended destination of Israel but, with the assistance of his publisher in the West, settled firstly in Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship. One year later, with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange, he moved to West Berlin where he still lives. Since leaving Estonia, Pärt has concentrated on setting religious texts for various forces. Large scale works include St. John Passion (1982), Te Deum (1984-86, rev. 1993) and Litany (1994). Works for SATB choir such as Magnificat (1989) and The Beatitudes (1990) have proved popular with choirs around the world and there is a growing ouvre of works for string orchestra and various chamber ensembles; numerous versions of Fratres (1976-date), Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten (1977/80), Festina Lente (1988) and Siloun's Song (1991). Among his champions in the West have been Manfred Eicher's ECM Records who released the first recordings of Pärt's music outside the Soviet bloc, Paul Hillier's Hilliard Ensemble (and laterly Theatre of Voices) who have premiered several of the vocal works and Neeme Jarvi, a long time collaborator of Pärt who conducted the premiere of Credo in Tallinn in 1968 and has, as well as recording the tintinnabuli pieces, introduced through performances and recordings, Pärt's earlier compositions. Pärt's achievements were honoured in his 61st year by his election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Copyright © Doug Maskew, 1997. (taken from http://www.musicolog.com/part.asp) Sink, Kuldar (b Tallinn, 14 Sept 1942; d 29 Jan 1995). Composer. His mother Marje Sink (1910 - 1979) was also known as composer, an author of a number of sacred works. Kuldar Sink completed his studies in music theory at the Tallinn Music School in 1960 and graduated from the same school as flutist (with E. Peäske) a year later. At the same time he studied composition under Veljo Tormis. From 1961 to 1966 Sink studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with Andrei Petrov. He has worked as flutist in the Estonia Theatre and in the Estonian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Since 1973 he was a freelance composer. Sink started to compose already in 1960 when he completed his Kolm pala keelpilliorkestrile [Three Pieces for Strings], a work played by the orchestras up to now. In the 1960's and the 1970's he joined with the mainstream of modern music including serialism, aleatorics and collage technique. In the 1980's a significant change took place in his music. His musical language changed so deeply that it is hard to find common traits in his earlier and later works at the first sight. His search for the new tone color (characteristic to his earlier styles too) run to extremes in the 1980's. At this time a sense of infinite flow of time springing from the Orient started to appear in Sink's music. Henceforth his musical language became less complicated containing the elements from the gregorian chant, Estonian folk song and the Romanticism (in the aspect of melody). Sink's life was broken by a tragic accident. A biblical opera he was working at remained unfinished. (taken from http://www.emic.kul.ee/heliloojad/kuldar_sink.htm) Tigran Mansurian was born in Beirut in 1939. In 1947 his family moved to Armenia, finally settling in the capital Yerevan in 1956. Mansurian studied at the Yerevan Music Academy and completed his PhD at the Komitas State Conservatory where he later taught contemporary music analysis. In a short time he became one of Armenia's leading composers, establishing strong creative relationships with international performers and composers such as Valentin Silvestrov, Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, André Volkonsky and Edison Denisov as well as Kim Kashkashian, Jan Garbarek, and the Hilliard Ensemble. Mansurian was the director of the Komitas Conservatory in the 1990s. He has recently retired as an administrator and teacher, and concentrates exclusively on composition. Mansurian's musical style is characterized mainly by the organic synthesis of ancient Armenian musical traditions and contemporary European composition methods. His oeuvre comprises orchestral works, seven concerti for strings and orchestra, sonatas for cello and piano, three string quartets, madrigals, chamber music and works for solo instruments. (taken from Other Minds web-site - http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Mansurian.shtml) Valentin Silvestrov was born in Kiev, Ukraine, on September 30, 1937, arguably the darkest year in the Russian history. He came rather late to music, beginning study at 15, first privately and then at an evening music school. By 1955, he graduated with a gold medal and enrolled at the Kiev Institute of Construction Engineering; but three years later Silvestrov began serious pursuit of music at the Kiev Conservatory, studying with Lyatoshyns'ky and Revutsky. Even with earliest works like the Piano Quintet (1961), Silvestrov was already drawn to the dramatic potential in contrasting strong tonality with strong atonality; in his massive Third Symphony "Eskhatofoniya" (1966), this preoccupation with polarities took the form of "cultural" (strictly notated) sounds and "mysterious" (improvised) ones. The place of magic and invocation - those elements that always defy material, that arise only in the process and afterwards - began to rest more firmly in Silvestrov's works. 1971's gigantic Drama for piano trio - "virtually a clinical study of an artistic crisis," Silvestrov's biographer writes - was a breakthrough work. And it was beginning in 1973 that Silvestrov embarked on his "metaphorical" or "allegorical" style, strongly reminiscent of late-Romantic cliché, to which he still adheres today - "metaphorical" because Silvestrov knows these sounds to be irrefutably "past" and has no interest in merely "resurrecting" them; and "allegorical," because Silvestrov wishes to use this music obliquely, as an estranged means rather than a predictable end. Silvestrov's Symphony No. 5 of 1982 is perhaps an ideal symbol of this style: in its three-quarter-hour cycle of nine slow movements, it "recycles" a whole world of banal, almost kitschy melodies on its scarred, cloudy surface. But underneath this floating music lies a tremendous complexity, both technically and emotionally; the accumulative expressive effect is undeniable and unexpected. Malcolm MacDonald perhaps put it best when he wrote that the "Russian sense of lamentation...reaches in Silvestrov a new expressive stage: he seems to compose, not the lament itself, but the lingering memory of it, the mood of sadness that it leaves behind." (taken from All-Music Guide web site) Alexei Liubimov is maybe the best contemporary Russian pianist. The unique character of the release lies in the fact that the recordings of the works presented on this album were made secretly during the 60-ies, when the works were written. Alexei Lubimov was born in Moscow in 1944, and began his musical training at the Central Music School in 1952. In 1963, he became a student at the Moscow Conservatory, where he worked with Heinrich Neuhaus - the celebrated teacher of such performers as Sviatolslav Richter and Emil Gilels. While still a student at the Conservatory, he won several prestigious competitions, including 1st Prize at the International Piano Competition in Rio de Janeiro, in 1965. He also began performing in concert, such as at the Warsaw Autumn Festival of Contemporary Music, in 1964. Since his graduation from the Conservatory in 1968, Alexei Lubimov has pursued an active career as a performer and has recorded a wide array of music, an extensive sample of which is provided here at the Classical Archives. From early in his career, he has championed the works of modern composers, and premiered numerous works of Soviet composers, such as Schnittke, Demidov, Pärt, and Volkonsky; he also gave first performances in the Soviet Union of works by such seminal composers as Webern, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, Penderecki, Ligeti, and Ives. He even created his own festival, Alternativa, dedicated to the music of the avant-garde, in 1988. During much of the 1970s and 80s, ideological censorship restricted Alexei's public performances to within the USSR; during this period he created strong associations with such outstanding chamber musicians as violinist Oleg Kagan and cellist Natalia Gutman, as well as with the Philharmonic Orchestra, under conductors Kyrill Kondrashin and Wassili Sinaiski. In 1976, Alexei Lubimov's interests expanded to Baroque music and historic instruments, manifest in his co-founding of the Moscow Baroque Quartet - along with Tatiana Grindenko on violin, Anatoly Grindenko on viola da gamba, and Oleg Khudyakov on flute. By 1981, Mr. Lubimov was giving performances on the fortepiano of the works of Mozart and Haydn, the first of their kind in the Soviet Union. A few years later, he presented the program, "The Golden Age of Harpsichord Music 1650-1750" with his own Moscow Chamber Academy, with works by German, French, Italian, and British composers. He continues to be very active in the Early Music world, performing in several festivals within Europe; he was recently appointed to the faculty of the celebrated Mozarteum in Salzburg. Alexei Lubimov has numerous recordings since the 1970s, for the Melodia (Russia), BIS, Sony, Erato, ECM and SoLyd Records. Reviews "In familiar Liszt and Chopin, Lubimov offered more imaginative faithfulness than I have heard in some time, different in innumerable details from the "standard" readings. But every time one thought, "Now, there's something you couldn't do on a modern grand!" It was also something that perhaps only Lubimov would have thought of doing anyway. The sound never seemed miniaturized: the third and fourth Chopin Ballades rose to glorious climaxes, and the three members of the audience who left before the encores missed a magnificent Barcarolle." The Financial Times (London) "... Quite a revelation...Lubimov brings a big, modern technique to bear on these (Mozart) sonatas...K533's marvelous first movement has lots of incredible, rich counterpoint and tremendous harmonic twists which Lubimov makes the most of...the slow movement, too, is really superb where he builds up the phrases and sequences architecturally with careful timing..." BBC Radio 3 Radio Review (Stanley Sadie) "Lubimov proved himself a flexible, inspired partner. For him, selfless following obviously is no more fruitful than aggressive leading. The versatile Muscovite did his own Romantic singing at the keyboard - always warm and sympathetic, virtuousic yet understated, assertive yet poetic. Don't call him an accompanist." Los Angeles Times, 1995 (taken from The Classical Musical Archives web-site - http://www.classicalarchives.com/artists/lubimov.html) Track List: 1. Arvo Part. Partita (1958) 2. Andrei Volkonsky. Musica Stricta (Fantasia ricercato) op.11 ( 3. Vitaly Godziatsky. Fractured Surfaces (1963) 4. Kuldar Sink. Four Compositions for 2 pianos. (1969). Composition 5. Kuldar Sink. Four Compositions for 2 pianos. (1969). Composition 6. Kuldar Sink. Four Compositions for 2 pianos. (1969). Composition 7. Kuldar Sink. Four Compositions for 2 pianos. (1969). Composition 8. Valentin Silvestrov. Elegy (1967) 9. Tigran Mansurian. Sonata in 3 movements (1967). Movement 1 10. Tigran Mansurian. Sonata in 3 movements (1967). Movement 2 11. Tigran Mansurian. Sonata in 3 movements (1967). Movement 3 12. Arvo Part. Diagrams (Two pieces) (1964) 13. Tigran Mansurian. Three Pieces (1970). Piece 1 14. Tigran Mansurian. Three Pieces (1970). Piece 2 15. Tigran Mansurian. Three Pieces (1970). Piece 3 16. Edison Denisov. Three pieces for 4 hands (1967). Piece 1 17. Edison Denisov. Three pieces for 4 hands (1967). Piece 2 18. Edison Denisov. Three pieces for 4 hands (1967). Piece 3 Suggested CDs:
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