Leon / Cullins / Eafit University Symphony Orch - Vocal Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Juozas Gruodis (1884-1948) was one of the most eminent and original Lithuanian composers of the first half of the 20th century. His emergence into the musical life of the time was as a promoter of progressive artistic ideas and, as such, he was determined to raise the level of the budding Lithuanian professional music scene to European standards. Gruodis' musical career spanned almost five decades, from the years prior to the declaration of Lithuania's independence in 1918 to the beginning of the Second Soviet Occupation in 1944.

This fifth instalment of the recent symphonic output of Fridrich Bruk (born in Ukraine in 1937 but a Finnish resident since 1974) brings two large canvases inspired by painters Symphony No. 13 by the revolutionary Soviet artist Kazimir Malevich, and No. 14 by Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream. Bruk may seem to write in a kind of stream of consciousness, but his works are subtly bound together through a network of motifs and details of scoring. Even so, the orchestral writing in both pieces is wildly inventive, a kaleidoscope of colour and counterpoint, sitting somewhere between Villa-Lobos and Pettersson in it's profligate abundance, with hints here and there of Prokofiev and Szymanowski.

Leon Levitch - Chamber Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/24/2006