In the Boris Tchaikovsky first movement there are strong and stormy parodistic Beethovenian elements. These are blended with caustic material that owes something to Shostakovich. A softer facet emerges in the unashamed sentiment singing out at 3.24 of the first movement. The Largo and Andante allow exceptional play for this. Tchaikovsky sings in this way as never did Shostakovich; totally his own man. Although it avoids the mawkish Tchaikovsky is here playing fast and loose in the no-man's land between sentimentality and piercing beauty. He is not alone in this: Sviridov, Boiko, Silvestrov, Gavrilin and Karaeyev have done the same. The work is dedicated to Moise Vainberg whose Violin Concerto has just been issued in a completely new recording on Naxos and whose Fifth Symphony has been issued on Chandos.

Klimov's work is one of two on this disc for unaccompanied cello. A chugging scherzo is strongly Shostakovich-inflected. There is a long folk-like Elegy with lovely sighing moments counter-pointed with pizzicato at 1.10.

Prokudin evinces a stirring sense of liberation (prelude 1) and of starry chill (prelude 2); the latter also heard in the solo piano music of Urmis Sisask.

Prassolova's long singing line through the piano impacts stretches back to Miaskovsky. You can feel music blossoming and un-peeling as she dismantles the melodic line. An intense epiphany is reached at the climax at 7.32. Prassolova shows a tender attention to melody and its blessing in renewal.

Another singing work is Golovin's Elegy for solo cello. It is very direct-speaking with melody unequivocally in the fluent ascendant. This delivers much and promises more. While there is a Bachian patina the Elegy is more linked to the long romantic lines of Rachmaninov. I would very much like to hear Golovin's four symphonies.

Rudin is vibrant and his accompanists sympathetic as well they might be in the case of the composer-pianists.

The names of these composers are linked in various ways. Tchaikovsky and Golovin were on the staff of the Gnessin Institute. Prokudin, Prassolova and Klimov were pupils of Golovin and Tchaikovsky.

Their works speak without confusion or the effrontery of elitism and with unfeigned sincerity. They have a profound anchorage in the Russian melodic tradition. Melody and profundity reward the explorer here.

Rob Barnett

 

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