A belated thank you for your support, Antonio.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Sergei Bortkiewicz - Violin Concerto; Othello (Sergey Levitin; Martin Yates)


Information

Composer: Sergei Bortkiewicz
  • (01) Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 22
  • (04) Symphonic poem after Shakespeare's Othello, Op. 19

Sergey Levitin, violin
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Martin Yates, conductor

Date: 2016
Label: Dutton
https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLX7323


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Review

Dutton’s disc (with its two premiere recordings) is already the second recording released this year devoted entirely to the music of Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952). It makes one wonder anew what would have happened if the composer had escaped the penurious life he suffered, shuffling from one European country to the next, and made for Hollywood, where his talents as a tunesmith and orchestral craftsman would surely have borne fruit and brought him the recognition he deserved.

One could hardly describe his Violin Concerto of 1922 as an adventurous, innovative masterpiece of breathtaking originality. It uses the musical language of half a century earlier and relies on techniques familiar from the concertos of Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Arensky and others for its lifeblood (though I wonder, listening to the last movement, if Bortkiewicz had not heard Korngold’s incidental music for Much Ado About Nothing, premiered in Vienna in 1920). Get past that hurdle, however, and you have a substantial three-movement work lasting 50 minutes of instant appeal and immense charm. Could I have wished for a heavier tone more forwardly projected from Sergey Levitin in the two outer movements? Yes. But how beautifully he shapes and sings the lovely second movement, entitled ‘Poème’.

A symphonic poem follows. Bortkiewicz’s Op 19, composed in 1914, follows the trajectory of Shakespeare’s Othello and the model of one of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poems (Romeo and Juliet perhaps): virile, martial motifs for Othello, an insidious theme for Iago (a distant relative of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel) and a lusciously romantic one for Desdemona. It’s a highly effective concert piece, much more so than Dvořák’s limp essay on the same subject. The Scottish players under the indefatigable Martin Yates play as if the music has been in their repertoire for years. The disc lasts a generous 80'46" and comes with an excellent booklet-note by Guy Rickards.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

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Sergei Bortkiewicz (28 February 1877 [O.S. 16 February] in Kharkov – 25 October 1952 in Vienna) was a Romantic composer and pianist. He studied with Anatoly Lyadov and Salomon Jadassohn, among others. Bortkiewicz's piano style was very much based on Liszt and Chopin, nurtured by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, early Scriabin, Wagner and Ukrainian folklore. Bortkiewicz never saw himself as a "modernist" and was unaffected by the music trends of the 20th century. The greater part of his printed compositions, which were held by his German publishers (Rahter & Litolff), were destroyed in the bombing of German cities in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Bortkiewicz

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Born in Russia, Sergey Levitin studied at the St Petersburg State Conservatory and the Conservatory for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Levitin has won several international awards in Italy and Spain and was a member of the Hermitage String Trio. In 1996 he was appointed Concert Master for the Kirov Orchestra at the Mariinsky Theatre by Valery Gergiev, subsequently touring and recording extensively with the company. Levitin joined the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House as Associate Concert Master in 2003 and was made Co-Concert Master in 2009 and was appointed to his current position in 2018.
http://www.roh.org.uk/people/sergey-levitin
https://prim.mariinsky.ru/en/company/persons/musicians/sergei_levitin

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Martin Yates (born 1 July 1958 in London) is a British conductor and composer. He studied at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music, London, where his teachers included Bernard Keeffe, Richard Arnell, Ian Lake, Jakob Kaletsky and Alan Rowlands. He has conducted many major symphony orchestras and is a regular conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. Yates has made over 70 recordings, including notable recordings of Richard Arnell's work, as well as recordings by other neglected British composers. As a composer, his music for flute and piano has been recorded by flautist Anna Noakes.

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FLAC, tracks
Links in comment
Enjoy!

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazing!!! Many many thanks for this!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much from Indonesia!

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  4. ciao, ronald ! il link non è più operativo. se puoi ricaricarlo, grazie in anticipo.
    S.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Skip Ad' (or 'Get link').
    If you are asked to download or install anything, IGNORE, only download from file hosting site (mega.nz).
    If MEGA shows 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded' message, try to create a free account.

    http://fumacrom.com/3lORE
    or
    https://uii.io/qrhdKRp
    or
    https://exe.io/di7ZE

    ReplyDelete
  6. grazie sempre Ronald per la tua gentilezza e la tua generosità

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry to use this post but I cannot answer/reply to posts in your other blog. When I try I get a message only members can reply.
    I want to thank you for sharing 'Sergei Bortkiewicz - Piano Works (Slawomir Wilk)'. There seems to be a problem though with the second part of the second sonata (Allegretto). Half way the music stops and all I hear is noice...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems the problem lies in the digital release itself. There is nothing I can do except waiting for official update. In the mean time, I would withdraw the post.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for your update :)

      Delete