London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir / Vladimir Jurowski VLADIMIR MARTYNOV Utopia

 

UTOPIA

 

Kronos Quartet MUSIC OF VLADIMIR MARTYNOV

Nonesuch Records releases Kronos Quartet’s Music of Vladimir Martynov on January 10, 2012. The album includes three works written or rescored for Kronos by the contemporary Russian composer Vladimir Martynov: The Beatitudes (1998, rescored for Kronos, 2006), Schubert–Quintet (Unfinished) (2009), and Der Abschied (2006). Kronos’ artistic director and founder David Harrington says Martynov’s music “straddles various points of musical history and time; the music seems to me to reflect and absorb humanity in such a beautiful way.”

Born in Moscow in 1946, Martynov was the son of a well-known musicologist and writer. He studied music from a young age and attended the Conservatory before expanding his musical pursuits beyond the traditional classical canon and into folk songs, early music, avant-garde, rock, and electronic music. In 1979, he entered the Spiritual Academy at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, where he worked on preserving and restoring traditional Russian Orthodox chant. He returned to composition in the 1990s with a new style that combined the traditions of American minimalism with the repetitive chant of Russian Orthodoxy.

Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica SILENCIO

Kremer's orchestra returns with a program of music centered (for the most part) on silence. With the exception of the first movement of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa, the works on this recording explore themes of quiet and introspection. Not that these pieces are background music; these are all complex pieces. Glass' Company, in fact, has a cascade of liquid passages full of arpeggiations and complex rhythms. The overall effect, however, is one of peacefulness. Interesting, too, the titles of the pieces lend themselves to images of intimacy -- titles Company, Come In!, and Darf Ich (German for "May I"). Come In! features soft and delicate music interspersed with a knocking sound. Opening movement "Ludus" from Tabula Rasa is the exception to the disc, with fiery intensity and almost unbearable tension. The Kremerata Baltica performs exquisitely and seem to do so effortlessly. This disc features two premiere recordings (Come In! and Darf ich) and one first recorded arrangement for string orchestra (Company). (Mark Allender)