Schnittke - Sketches (Esquisses) | Brilliant Classics 9215

Schnittke - Sketches (Esquisses)

£9.45

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Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 9215

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Ballet

Release Date: 18th April 2011

Contents

Artists

Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra

Conductor

Andrey Chistiakov

Works

Schnittke, Alfred

Sketches

Artists

Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra

Conductor

Andrey Chistiakov

About

In 1978 Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) wrote the incidental music for a production of The Inspector’s Tale, an adaptation for stage of Gogol’s Dead Souls. It was to have been directed by Yuri Lyubimov, but the Soviet government banned the production. A suite was assembled from the score by Gennadi Rozhdenstvensky, and two leading colleagues of Schnittke - Gubaidulina and Denisov - contributed a jointly composed march, which opens this CD.

In 1985 the music was choreographed, and the ballet, called Esquisses was performed at the Bolshoi. Schnittke composed a number of new pieces for this production. The characters in the action are all from Gogol, but in addition to The Dead Souls, we meet Tchitchikov, Major Kovalyov’s Nose, and Ferdinand VIII from Notes of a Madman. A passage from the book is recited in his piece, and is read by the conductor on this CD.

The music is a poly-stylistic, with a huge orchestra (2 electric guitars, flexatone, prepared piano with coins inserted between the strings), quotations from Beethoven, Haydn and Tchaikovsky - all with a sense of devilish mischief which suites ideally the grotesque nature of many of Gogol’s characters.

Recording made in 1996.

The result is one of his most entertaining pieces, playful, memorable, laconic, packed with sly grotesqueries: ideal for the theatre, in other words. The performance and recording do it full justice’ - Gramophone, June 1998

Track Listing:
1. March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish
2. Overture
3. The Childhood of Chichikov
4. The Portrait
5. Major Kovalyov
6. Morning. The Disappearance of the Nose
7. In Search of the Nose
8. Despair
9. The Nose is Found
10. The Overcoat
11. Ferdinand VIII
12. The Civil Servants
13. The Barrel-Organ
14. The Unknown Woman
15. Pas de deux
16. The Debauch
17. The Sabbath
18. The Barrel-Organ
19. Spanish Royal March
20. The Ball
21. The Testament
22. March: The Swan, the Pike and the Crayfish

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