RIP Alexander Toradze

Soviet pianist Alexander Toradze (from Georgia) has died, and the New York Times has an obituary. (I can get you behind the firewall because I have a Times subscription -- subscribers can provide 10 links a month to social media, blogs, friends, etc.) 

"In a 1984 review, Donal Henahan of The Times wrote of Mr. Toradze’s playing, 'It is the distinctive Russian style of an older generation, still alive in this era of stamped-out international virtuosos'.”

Here is Joe Horowitz' appreciation.  And here is nice bonus entry from his blog. 

Toradze apparently didn't make a lot of recordings, but I've been listening to his album (with the Kirov Orchestra and Valery Gergiev) of the Prokofiev piano concertos; it's worth a listen. It's on Hoopla Digital, which means that most Americans with a library card can listen to the album. 

Hat tip: Eric Wagner.

I can't find a public domain/Creative Commons photo and apparently there are a lot of trolls out there who like to attack fair use, so sorry, no photo. 

Edison Denisov, Pink Floyd fan

Pink Floyd in 1973. Sure, the band is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but did you know Edison Denisov loved Pink Floyd? (Public domain photo). 

Since my last post on Russian composer Edison Denisov, some useful resources have come to my attention:

1. There's a useful book about him, Edison Denisov, written by Yuri Kholopov and Valeria Tsenova, published while he was still alive and translated into English by Romela Kohanovskaya. I've read part of it. Among other points, it documents how Dimitri Shostakovich went out of his way to help Denisov very early in Denisov's career.

One of the best parts of the book is toward the end, where Denisov's views on music simply are quoted. For example, he liked rock music and jazz:

“I’m very fond of jazz. It is genuine art. Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis are true great musicians. Miles Davis is my favourite musician, his harmonic thinking is as refined as Debussy’s”.

“I’m keenly interested in modern rock music. Captivated by its uninhibited and bright styles; sometimes you may come across high poetry too. My favourite group is Pink Floyd whose serious music I can listen to every day”.

He had no use for minimalism and didn't like John Cage or Paul Hindemith. 

He liked a lot of modernists, such as Boulez, Bartok and Webern. And especially:  “Mozart, Glinka and Schubert are closer to my heart than any other music."

2. There's an official website, updated with upcoming shows featuring his music (mostly in France and Russia.)

3. Here's a good interview of Denisov by Bruce Duffie, with Laurel Fay serving as the translator! My ambition to conduct an interview with a Russian composer, with Laurel Fay as my personal translator, probably must remain unrealized. (She is the Shostakovich biographer, of course.)

BD:  One last question.  Is composing fun?  [Note: After rendering my question to the composer, the translator quietly said to me, "The word 'fun' is an impossible word to translate; they don't have the word 'fun' in Russian."]

ED:  It's a form of existence.  I couldn't exist without composing; I couldn't survive, couldn't get along.  If I go without writing music for a long time I feel sick.  Unfortunately I don't get the opportunity to work without interruptions, so I always have to work in spurts.

Listening to Edison Denisov

Edison Denisov (Creative Commons photo by Dimitri Smirnov)

I have always meant to give a closer listen to the music of Edison Denisov (1929-1996) and figuring that the time is now, I have been busy exploring his music.

Denisov does not fit chronologically into the main focus of this blog -- musicians such as Gavriil Popov and Alexander Mosolov -- but in a way he fits thematically; as this Wikipedia biography explains, he became a leader of the Association of Contemporary Music when it was reestablished in Moscow in 1990. 

I discovered Denisov through a wonderful live recording of Denisov's second symphony, still my favorite Denisov work so far; I got it from Boom, i.e., Vadim Batitsky, the late music blogger I wrote about earlier.   It's a recording with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, Joerg-Peter Weigle conducting.(Boom had a large collection of live music recordings, which he would share on his blog). When I told Boom I was having trouble finding anything else by Denisov that I liked as well and I asked  Boom if he had any other good live recordings, he replied, " I am afraid his 2nd symphony is the only composition of his good enough to impress conductors outside Russia."

As you can from the Wikipedia biography, Denisov managed to get himself denounced by Tikhon Khrennikov for "western influences" and "erudition instead of creativity," so he has good street cred. I can't find it in the Wikipedia bio, but his father admired Thomas Edison, hence the composer's name. If you leave off the "V," his first name is an anagram of his last name. Denisov was from Siberia and lived most of his life in Russia but was in France for his last few years. 

I have recently persisted in trying other Denisov recordings; much of his work has in fact been recorded. I have in fact found other Denisov works I like; I can recommend his sonata for alto saxophone and piano, which has been recorded several times and in fact may be his most-recorded work. I also like the concerto for clarinet and orchestra. Does anyone have any other works to recommend to me?