Moscow Chamber Orchestra - Showpieces & Encores - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Nikolay Tcherepnin, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov in St Petersburg, achieved fame as a conductor, directing the premiere of his ballet Le Pavillon d'Armide as the opening to Diaghilev's first Ballets Russes season in 1911 which also marked the Paris debut of Nijinsky. A work of great importance in the history of modern ballet, with choreography by Fokin, this enchanting score brings to life a Gobelin tapestry in a mysterious and haunted pavilion in the grounds of a French chateau. Cocteau described it's effect as 'better than a poem by Heine, than a story of Poe, than any dream, this is nostalgia for things partly seen, insubstantial and insistent.' This recording was first released in 1995 on our Marco Polo tag, and being the only complete recording of this stunning work currently available. This recording was acclaimed on it's initial , with Classic CD concluding that 'excellent performances from the Moscow Symphony Orchestra under Henry Shek and sympathetic engineering make this worth seeking out', and Fanfare stating that 'the performance is thoroughly convincing and ably recorded... an enjoyable discovery.'

Joseph Haydn once remarked 'I was not a magician on any instrument, but I knew the power and effect of all of them.' This knowledge he used to good effect in his cello concertos, composed some twenty years apart for two different cellists in 'his' orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy. Both works are firmly established in the concert repertoire, but this has not always been the case. Concerto No. 1 in C major was long believed to be lost and it was only in 1961 that a set of parts were discovered in the Prague National Museum. The D major concerto, on the other hand, was never lost, but for a very long time there was doubts concerning it's provenance. Only when Haydn's manuscript was found in 1954 could the work's authorship be clarified beyond doubt. These two jewels in the cello repertoire are here performed by the acclaimed Swiss cellist Christian Poltéra who also directs the Münchener Kammerorchester. Closing the disc is a work composed some 150 years later the composer and viola player Paul Hindemith wrote his Trauermusik for himself to perform at a concert commemorating the death of George V of England in 1936. It is here heard in the version for cello and strings.

Moscow Symphony Orchestra - Monster Music Film Music Classics [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/22/2005