COMPOSERS: Klebanov
LABELS: ESS.A.Y
WORKS: Japanese Silhouettes; Viola Concerto
PERFORMER: Natalia Biorro (soprano), Mela Tenenbaum (viola, viola d’amore)Philharmonia Virtuosi/Igor Blazhkov, Richard Kapp
CATALOGUE NO: CD 1052
It’s too bad that the music on this disc doesn’t live up to the riveting liner note. Dmitri Klebanov was born in 1907 in Kharkov, Ukraine, dying there in 1987. In view of his high profile symphony, Babi Yar, and in the aftermath of Stalin’s attack on ‘cosmopolite artists and intellectuals’, Klebanov was vilified. Mela Tenenbaum, the gifted viola and viola d’amore soloist, for whom the works on this disc were written, ‘rediscovered’ Klebanov when he was in his late seventies. This is time-warp music: at its best (in the Viola Concerto), sub-Vaughan Williams; at its worst, rambly and directionless. The soprano Natalia Biorro is a more than adequate soloist in Japanese Silhouettes but Japanese haiku (in Russian) with viola d’amore is weird. Annette Morreau
Klebanov
It’s too bad that the music on this disc doesn’t live up to the riveting liner note. Dmitri Klebanov was born in 1907 in Kharkov, Ukraine, dying there in 1987. In view of his high profile symphony, Babi Yar, and in the aftermath of Stalin’s attack on ‘cosmopolite artists and intellectuals’, Klebanov was vilified. Mela Tenenbaum, the gifted viola and viola d’amore soloist, for whom the works on this disc were written, ‘rediscovered’ Klebanov when he was in his late seventies.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm