Nikolai ROSLAVETS (1881-1944)
Meditation; Cello Sonata no. 1; Five Preludes for piano; Cello Sonata
no. 2; Dance of the White Girls
Alexander Ivashkin (cello)
Tatyana Larazeva (piano)
Rec 12-14 July 2000, Moscow Conservatory
CHANDOS CHAN 9881
[56.25]
Crotchet
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Roslavets was much admired by Shostakovich, and this disc, featuring his
complete music for cello and piano, confirms that he was a real talent. He
was also a composer who pushed back the boundaries of stylistic acceptance,
and as a result fell into disfavour when Stalin's policy of Socialist realism
attempted to impose conservative quasi-romantic values on new music.
During the 1920s Roslavets was at the cutting edge of the new Soviet music,
a leading figure in the new society established by the Bolsheviks, and it
was at this time that he composed his two cello sonatas and the Meditation.
The appealing Dance of the White Girls is an altogether earlier
composition, from 1912, before the Revolution. The Five Preludes for piano
solo follow the style of Scriabin, and are impressive in both technique and
content.
Scriabin, moreover, informs practically all the music contained here, if
only by initial reference; the starting point for later developments. For
it was his chromatic style, pushing back the confines of conventional harmonies,
that led on to the intensely expressive, almost serial techniques so often
favoured by Roslavets. The two sonatas are particularly powerful in their
expression, and all credit to Ivashkin and Larazeva for their committed
performances, and to the engineers for the excellent quality of the recorded
sound. There is a wide range of contrasting musical elements here, not least
of dynamics, while the single-movement Meditation offers a more appealing
mood, as its title would suggest.
Terry Barfoot
