Irina Muratova, Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra – Mussorgsky: The Nursery – Schnittke: In Memoriam (Live) (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/176,4kHz]

Irina Muratova, Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra – Mussorgsky: The Nursery – Schnittke: In Memoriam (Live) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 40:02 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © JSC Firma Melodiya

The Nursery (Russian: Детская, Detskaya, literally Children’s [Room]) is a song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky set to his own lyrics, composed between 1868 and 1872. The cycle was published in two series. Only the first two songs survive of the second series. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, Schnittke’s experiments with form and compositional style produced several important works: the Violin Sonata “Quasi una sonata” (1968), the First Symphony (1969-72), the Suite in the Olden Style (1972), and the Requiem (1975). It was during this period that Schnittke composed In memoriam…, which he adapted from his Piano Quintet (1972-76).

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Gennady Rozhdestvensky – Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20, TH. 12 by Gennady Rozhdestvensky (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gennady Rozhdestvensky – Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, Op. 20, TH. 12 by Gennady Rozhdestvensky (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:28:14 minutes | 2,66 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording

Gennady Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow. His parents were the noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya. His given name was Gennady Nikolayevich Anosov, but he adopted his mother’s maiden name in its masculine form for his professional career so as to avoid the appearance of nepotism. His younger brother, the painter P.N. Anosov, retained their father’s name.

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Gennady Rozhdestvensky – Howells: Missa Sabrinensis & Stabat Mater (2005/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Gennady Rozhdestvensky – Howells: Missa Sabrinensis & Stabat Mater (2005/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:07:50 minutes | 514 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

As a composer of British choral music, Herbert Howells is sometimes considered a follower of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. Yet the expansively breathed counterpoint, lush orchestral sounds, and impressionistic harmonies in his large choral works, such as the Missa Sabrinensis and the Stabat Mater on this 2005 Chandos compilation, mark him more accurately as a fellow traveler with Ralph Vaughan Williams in the English pastoral movement. (Interestingly, though both men composed works for religious uses, Howells and Vaughan Williams seem to have been agnostics who viewed composing sacred music merely as an opportunity to write glorious works for choir). Recorded in 1994 and 1995 by Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, these mystical choral works sound symphonically spacious and almost cosmic in range and depth, quite far removed from any practical ecclesiastical functions. Indeed, the Missa Sabrinensis seems closer in a nearly pantheistic spirit to Vaughan Williams’ “Sea” Symphony in its poetic wafting, and the ecstatic singing of soprano Janice Watson, mezzo-soprano Della Jones, tenor Martyn Hill, and baritone Donald Maxwell contributes to the striking resemblance between the two works. Chandos offers remarkable reproduction in these recordings, gorgeous in the Missa Sabrinensis, and at times bracing in the Stabat Mater.

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Herbert von Karajan, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, The Philharmonia, Moscow Radio Symphony – Mily Balakirev: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2017/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Herbert von Karajan, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, The Philharmonia, Moscow Radio Symphony – Mily Balakirev: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 (2017/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:47 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Praga Digitals

A logical, albeit rare, association of symphonies by Balakirev, the composer of Islamey and Tamara He was the cornerstone of the Russian Mighty Five: César Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev, who in the 1860s banded together in an attempt to create a truly national school of Russian music; free of the stifling influence of Italian opera, German lieder, and other western European forms. In this album two prestigious conductors do them justice. Symphony No.1 in C major is a romantic and well constructed work, performed by the early Karajan/Walter Legge team and the Philharmonia was certainly a crack ensemble at the time. The 2nd Symphony, which has with some justice been described as a paler copy of the 1st, brings an opening movement which under Rozhdestvensky s baton moves forward strongly, generating much Slavic energy.

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