Stravinsky / Gourdjia / Skanavi / Deutsche Radio - Igor Stravinsky: Violin Concerto - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Quartetto Paganini - Complete Quartets 2 [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/24/1994

In his autobiography, Igor Stravinsky wrote of his not having had an 'great liking' for the combination of strings and piano. That there nevertheless are a number of chamber works by him featuring the violin is to a large extent due to teh violinist Samuel Dushkin. The two were introduced to each other by Stravinsky's German music who wanted to persudade him to compose a violin concerto. They obviously hit it off their collaboration continued after the concerto had come into being in 1931, and they devised a recital programme to perform together on tours. The centrepiece was Duo concertant which Stravinsky completed in 1932 as his only original composition for violin and piano. Rather than looking for common ground between the two instruments, Stravinsky aimed to emphasize their individuality in a work that he himself claimed was 'determiend by my love of the pastoral poets of antiquity and their scholarly art and technique'. The other pieces on this album are, with one exception, arrangements of Stravinsky's own works including The Firebird, Petrushka and Le rossignol. The majority were made for and in collaboration with Dushkin, but a few come from the 1920's and were intended for teh violinist aPaul Kochanski. One of these is the Suite for Violin and Piano, arranged from the ballet Pulcinella - material that Stravinsky revisited in the 1930's in order to make a new version for dushkin. With this programme, and in the company of the eminent Russian pianist Peter Laul, the highly virtuosic and temperamental violinist Ilya Gringolts makes his return to BIS.

French violinist Chloé Kiffer and Russian-American pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine bring compositions by Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky to dazzling life in a collaboration rich in rarely explored musical and personal connection. Chloe Kiffer graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with a bachelor's degree at 17. She earned postgraduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music under Patinka Kopec and Pinchas Zukerman, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University. Ms. Kiffer guest performs and teaches at festivals around the world. She has been closely associated with the Miami Music Festival, the Heifetz International Music Institute, and the Beijing International Music Festival and Academy. She joined the Manhattan School of Music Precollege faculty in 2019. Mr. Moutouzkine has toured throughout Germany, France, Spain, Russia, Italy, and North and South America, as well as in China and Japan. In recent seasons, he has appeared as soloist with the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Television Orchestra of Spain, Cleveland Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic, Valencia Philharmonic, the Gran Canaria and Tenerife symphonies in the Canary Islands. International Piano magazine hailed his recital in London's Wigmore Hall as Inchgrandly organicInch and Inchtechnically dazzling.Inch His performance of the Chopin Études in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory was recorded live and released on the Classical Music Archives tag in Russia.