Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra - Orchestral Music 3 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Derek Scott, born in Birmingham in 1950, has an international reputation as an historian of the British music hall and other forms of light entertainment. But he is an outstanding composer in his own right - a master craftsman and natural tunesmith, who manages to unite good humour, unerring technique and deep feeling in music of immediate appeal. Although the works recorded here represent his most recent harvest of orchestral music, for many of them he revisited material composed earlier in his career, using it as the basis for a series of new scores, some exhibiting a very English sense of whimsy, others concerned with deeper matters - one, indeed, inspired by the war in Ukraine. Album Tracks 1. Wilberforce, Op. 43 [12 00] 2. Salisbury Plain, Op. 1 [07 48] 3. Lament, Op. 8 [08 51] 4. Fibrillation Fantasy, Op. 41 [05 31] 5. Pavane, Op. 42 [06 49] 6. The Warning Song, Op. 44 [09 55] 7. Reminiscence, Op. 45 [07 11] 8. I. Grave - Allegro [03 35] 9. II. Passacaglia Andante [04 21] 10. III. Larghetto [02 04] 11. IV. Allegro Vivace [02 54]

?This fourth instalment of the recent symphonic output of Fridrich Bruk (born in Ukraine in 1937 but a Finnish resident since 1974) brings two earlier works - from when Bruk was merely in his late seventies. His Symphonies Nos. 15 and 16 - both predicated on Bruk's concern for the environment - inhabit the soundworld that has become familiar from his more recent symphonies almost a stream of consciousness expressed through wildly inventive orchestral writing in a kaleidoscope of colour and counterpoint, sitting somewhere between Villa-Lobos and Pettersson in it's profligate abundance. Album Tracks 1. Symphony No. 15, Reflections (2015) 2. Symphony No. 16, the River Dnieper (2016)

Fridrich Bruk - born in Kharkov in 1937 and a Finnish resident since 1974 - made his name as a composer of tangos. But the heart of his music lies in a series of (to date) 21 symphonies, which have a strong narrative element, some reflecting Jewish themes, others inspired by Karelia and Finland. The three most recent together form a kind of meta-symphony premised on the persecution of the Jews in the first half of the twentieth century. Bruk's kaleidoscopic use of orchestral color, his angular but expressive melodies and his dramatic musical language reflect this urge to chronicle the outrage visited on his fellow Jews - and which directly impinged on his own life. Album Tracks 1. Symphony No. 19, Tunes from Ghettoes~I. Our Little Town is Burning 2. Symphony No. 19, Tunes from Ghettoes~II. Ele-bele 3. Symphony No. 19, Tunes from Ghettoes~III. O, Hammer, Hammer, Knock! 4. Symphony No. 20~I. Allegro energico 5. Symphony No. 20~II. Adagietto - 6. Symphony No. 20~III. Lesto 7. Symphony No. 21, Presentiment In memory of Anne Frank~I. Presentiment - 1 8. Symphony No. 21, Presentiment In memory of Anne Frank~II. Presentiment - 2