Alexey SHOR (b.1970)
Images from the Great Siege: An Orchestral Cycle (2014-16) [38:34]
Verdiana (version for orchestra) (2015) [12:55]
London Symphony Orchestra/Sergey Smbatyan
rec. Watford Coliseum, Hertfordshire, 1 April, 19 June 2019
NAXOS 8.579061 [51:34]
Alexey Shor is a composer previously entirely unknown to me, and a man with an interesting history. Born in Kiev, he studied Mechanics and Mathematics until his family emigrated to Israel in 1991. He moved to the United States, where he was awarded a Ph.D in Mathematics, and, until 2016, he continued to work in mathematics. In 2012, he began to compose, first short pieces, and a friend persuaded him to work on a You Tube video, which attracted over 350,000 viewers. Since then he has been widely performed, and is now Composer-in-Residence for the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Academy, Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the Salomé Chamber Orchestra.
Miniatures and short pieces have been recorded in half a dozen collections, but the new recording is the first devoted entirely to Shor’s music. His popularity is easy to understand. His idiom is highly melodic, lively, varied, deftly orchestrated – and could have been written at almost any time in the last century. His gift seems to be for the miniature, and he invests his pieces with great variety.
Images from the Great Siege was inspired by the Great Siege of Malta, by the Turks, in 1565, a siege which lasted 28 days before the attackers were defeated. Of his music, Shor writes:
This cycle does not attempt to do justice to the horrors and heroism of the Great Siege of Malta but rather to present a few romanticised images related to it.
That description is accurate. The music is thoroughly romantic in character, and while Shor provides, in his programme notes, a narrative account of each movement, I found myself swiftly ignoring it, and just enjoying the sound. The 13 movements are each brief – the two longest are under five minutes each – never outstay their welcome, and are enjoyable on their own, conservative, terms.
Verdiana is best described as an amiable bon-bon, with famous melodies from the operas recast in the style of tango, bossa nova, and samba, neatly and enjoyably done.
Performances have both commitment and enjoyment all over them. By modern standards, playing time is on the brief side, and it might have been an idea to include something else, such as some pieces from Shor’s ballet, Crystal Palace, but perhaps Naxos have in mind a complete performance of this two-act work, which has operatic elements.
Michael Wilkinson
