Dmitri Vasiliev - Orchestral Music 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Dmitri Vasiliev - Orchestral Music 2 [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/28/2014

The long awaited debut set from this quartet is an album that reaches for the heights of Jeff Buckley, the intensity of a less-goth Muse, and the heft of vintage Radiohead, InchMotherInch is quite some achievement. Documenting many highs and lows from Harry Collier's convoluted life story in the form of bitter but glorious tunes like InchB*tchInch and towering, orchestral songs like InchGrowInch. Each track has strong emotional intent and dark undertows, as Harry says himself Inchyou can say it's a bit soft but it's also hardcoreInch. After an appearance on InchLater... with Jools HollandInch, this album instantly soared to the top of online demand lists in the U.K.

The Muscovite Alexander Tchaikovsky (b. 1946) - nephew of Boris Tchaikovsky but no relative to Pyotr Ilich - is one of the most highly respected composers at work in Russia today, and yet his music has had little exposure to western audiences. His symphonic style owes something to that of his uncle it likewise patiently develops enormous power over large expanses of sound, although there is also room for gently ironic touches of nostalgia - an inheritance, perhaps, from his uncle's teacher, Shostakovich. The monumental Third Symphony (1995-2002), scored for a huge orchestra, is infused with dance rhythms it uses material from an abandoned ballet based on Dostoyevsky's The Devils. The Seventh Symphony is very much a work de nos jours Tchaikovsky composed it during the Covid-19 pandemic, scored it for a socially distanced orchestra of strings, percussion and piano - at which point, as he writes, 'the virus then took revenge', and he fell ill himself. The message of the work is clear, as the turmoil of the first movement gives way to a message of hope in the second.