Ravel / Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra - Ravel: Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Leo Ornstein is as well known for his extraordinary longevity as for his music he was born in Ukraine in 1893 and died in Wisconsin in 2002, aged at least 108. His generous output of music, much of it for the piano, his own instrument, remains poorly known, although it can stand shoulder to shoulder with that of many better-known names. Many of the pieces here - which cover a span of over 60 years - have their roots in Debussy, Skryabin and Szymanowski, but Ornstein welds those influences into an edgy, energetic language very much his own. The Three Moods of c. 1914 are anger, grief and joy, but there is strength of feeling in all the music to be heard here. Indeed, the Nine Vignettes bear a misleading title they are substantial and powerful virtuoso essays which can flare up into moments of startling power and violence; hitherto unknown, they constitute a major contribution to the piano literature.

Ravel / Stuttgart Radio Sym Orch - Orchestral Works 2 [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/28/2014

Performances of less recorded orchestral works by Igor Stravinsky, which show the versatility of the Russian composer, who was never a supporter of any kind of expression aesthetics. On the contrary, he saw composing as an intellectual game, an attempt to solve self-invented musical problems. His constructivism could be kindled by Italian Baroque music, but just as well by the polyphonous structures of the Renaissance, by jazz, or by Anton Webern's serial tone complexes.