Tishchenko Piano Sonatas

Description du produit Often described as a favourite pupil of Shostakovich, Boris Tishchenko studied composition with the master between 1962 and 1965. The influence of Shostakovich is discernible in much of Tishchenko's music, but the younger composer was also interested in the music of non-European countries, such as India, China and Japan, as well as in Russian folklore. Tishchenko was a prolific composer, with an output that covered many genres, including a great deal of orchestral music. Throughout his career, however, runs the thread of his eleven piano sonatas: the first sonata is his Op. 3, and the final one became his last completed score. Most of the sonatas are extensive works, imagined on an almost symphonic scale. With a duration of 40 minutes, the Seventh Sonata, Op. 85 (1982), is the longest of them all. It is also the most unusual, being a sonata 'for piano with bells'. On this recording the pianist is joined by a percussionist playing respectively large bells, tubular bells and glockenspiel in the three movements of the sonata. The Eighth Sonata, Op. 99 (1986), despite being a three-movement work also, could not be more different, testimony to the stylistic breadth of the composer. Joined by Jean-Claude Gengembre in Sonata No. 7, the French pianist Nicolas Stavy makes his first appearance on BIS in these demanding and valuable scores. His recording also serves as a useful and welcome reminder of the many fine composers that remained in the Soviet Union, when colleagues such as Sofia Gubaidulina or Alfred Schnittke emigrated to the West. Critique Boris Tishchenko was a Soviet composer of dark and exuberantly offbeat music. He wrote a lot, and what he wrote was generally not shy. He charted the struggle of Soviet artists in his vehement orchestral song-cycle Requiem; he was a devotee of Shostakovich, and it shows in the prickly wit and grotesque pastiches of his music. That he was a superb pianist underpins the expansive, gnarly language of his 11 piano sonatas. On this recording, French pianist Nicolas Stavy tackles the Seventh, longest and formally weirdest of them all, with its clanging tubular bells and acid glockenspiel (played by Jean-Claude Gengembre) adding to the absurd melodrama of the mix. The Eighth is more taut a tightly-sprung riot of tough counterpoint, mordant send-ups and suddenly bare, solemn chorales. Stavy's playing is fearless throughout. He unleashes outrageous whirlwinds then finds penetrating space and contemplation in slow passages. **** --Guardian, 27/8/15 A colossal achievement. Nicolas Stavy and Jean-Claude Gengembre give a formidable performance. --The Classical reviewer, Sept '15