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Light Over Darkness (Schnittke and Kancheli) | Odradek Records ODRCD341

Light Over Darkness (Schnittke and Kancheli)

£11.38

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Label: Odradek Records

Cat No: ODRCD341

Barcode: 0855317003417

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 8th September 2017

Gramophone Editor's Choice

Contents

Artists

Lutoslawski Quartet
Erato Alakiozidou (piano)

Works

Kancheli, Giya

Piano Quartet

Schnittke, Alfred

Piano Quartet
Piano Quintet, op.108

Artists

Lutoslawski Quartet
Erato Alakiozidou (piano)

About

Greek pianist Erato Alakiozidou and the Lutoslawski Quartet perform works by Alfred Schnittke and Giya Kancheli, which combine the contemporary expressive vocabulary of postmodernism, with the historical narrative of the last three centuries of Western Music. Moments of amazing tension are juxtaposed with passages of fragile introspection.

Schnittke’s Piano Quartet (1988) was composed out of Mahler’s sketch for the unfi nished second movement of his student Piano Quartet written in the mid-1870s. While Schnittke sometimes clearly departs from the Mahler original, much of the time it is quite clearly present, often with additional material accumulating round it - chromatic chords, dense canonic treatments.

If Schnittke’s music is often in uneasy dialogue with that of the Austro-German tradition, the work of Giya Kancheli seems set apart from that tradition, linked rather with Pärt and Górecki. Like Schnittke’s Piano Quintet, Kancheli’s In L’istesso Tempo has a mournful tone, but while Schnittke expresses a personal grief, Kancheli’s is more universal. In a preface to the score Kancheli tells the listener to expect “threads of sorrow caused by the imperfections of the world”.

Erato Alakiozidou has performed internationally in countries including Italy, Serbia, Turkey, Poland and the UK. She has pioneered a number of projects including international music festival Synthermia, contemporary music ensemble Idée Fixe, non-profit organisation Beartive, and the Tangos a cuatro Quartet.

Named after the great 20th-century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, and specialising in music of the 20th and 21st centuries, the Lutoslawski Quartet is one of Poland’s leading quartets. Since its formation in 2007, the group has quickly established itself on the Polish and international classical music scene, appearing in numerous prestigious festivals and concert halls, as well as working with IRCAM at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Reviews

The Piano Quintet is one of Schnittke’s darkest, most haunting works. ... While the work has in some sense an arguably fuller expression in its orchestral reworking as In memoriam, the sheer intensity of this chamber version is utterly gripping, and the combination of the young Greek pianist Erato Alakiozidou and the Lutosławski Quartet is electrifying. ... Complementing the two Schnittke works is the piano quartet In l’istesso tempo by Giya Kancheli. A work of elegant mournfulness, it is the perfect companion here, and performed with tremendous sensitivity.  Ivan Moody
Gramophone January 2018

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