Product Description

Year of release: 2006 Recording length: 76:38 Composer: Boris Lytoshinsky Performer: Boris Demenko Tracks 1. Sonata r1, tv 13 (1924) 2. Maestoso e con fermezza 3. Velutato assai 4. Tempestoso 5. Disperato e lugubre 6. Come di lontananza 7. Ironicamente, misurato assai 8. Con agitazione 9. Sonata balada 10. Ballada, tv. 22 11. Andante sostenuto 12. Lento tenebroso 13. Moderato con moto e sempre ben ritmico 14. Allegro tumultuso 15. Allegro resoluto 16. Lugubre ma non troppo lento 17. Lento e tranquillo 18. Allegro agitato 19. Andante sostenuto 20. Impretuso 21. Kontsertnij etyud rondo 22. Traurna prelyudtsya

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #606446 in Music
• Published on: 2006
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: CD, Import
• Running time: 76 minutes

Customer Reviews

Poignant and Virtuosic Piano Music from a Ukrainian Avant-Gardist
Since Amazon's product page lacks a coherent and easy-to-read track listing, I will begin my review with a list of the pieces on this disc:

* Piano Sonata No. 1 Op. 13 (9:24)
* Piano Sonata No. 2 'Sonata-ballad' Op. 18 (8:02)
* Ballad Op. 22 (5:20)
* Mourning Prelude (4:06)
* Seven Reflections Op. 16 (varying in length from 1-3 minutes)
* Three Preludes Op. 38 (each around 5 minutes in length)
* Two Preludes Based on Ukrainian Folk Songs Op. 38 (each under 3 minutes)
* Five Preludes Op. 44 (each around 2 minutes)
* Concert Etude Rondo (5:03)

Throughout the 20th century, Borys Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968) was considered a major Ukrainian composer. He was a favorite pupil of Glière and was particularly esteemed as both a pianist and symphonist. In the 1920s, Lyatoshynsky wrote experimental music much aligned with the avant-garde movement in Russia. However, with the assimilation of Ukraine into the USSR, Lyatoshynsky and his contemporaries were forced to restrain their experimental proclivities. After Stalin's death, Lyatoshynsky resumed composing in a modernist style and even founded a "Kiev Avant-Garde" school made up of his best students.

Unless one is living in Russia, it is nearly impossible to find Lyatoshynsky's piano music on recording. The Marco Polo label has spearheaded the recordings of his symphonies, and a few stray out-of-print CD's containing his chamber music can be scavenged on Amazon. But this present Russian import is the only recording I'm aware of that features all of Lyatoshynsky's piano music; Borys Demenko is apparently the first to record everything and his interpretations have been praised by Lyatoshynsky pupil and composer, Valentin Silvestrov.

Lyatoshynsky's piano music is dark, tortured, and dramatically serious. His idiom is clearly influenced by the expressionism and avant-garde works by such Russian pianist-composers as Mosolov, Roslavets, and Feinberg. Lyatoshynsky's two agitated and virtuosic piano sonatas were composed in the mid 1920s and emphasize lower-bass sonorities, nervous rhythms, and violent expressivity. Lyatoshynsky must have known Mosolov's Fifth Sonata when composing his Ballad Op. 22, a menacing and somber work that draws upon the lowest bass of the piano to generate dark harmonies. In the Reflections Op. 16, seven highly-expressive miniatures, Lyatoshynsky seems inspired by late Scriabin, Myaskovsky, and even the Russian émigré, Arthur Lourie. Each miniature is texturally and rhythmically different, and is sinewed with feelings of morbidity and irritation. Funereal pathos is emitted in the "Mourning Prelude," a student work written in 1920 with a chordal texture owing much to Rachmaninov.

Unlike Mosolov and Feinberg, Lyatoshynsky was a definite melodist, which is evident in his Five Preludes Op. 44. The first, marked "Lugubre," is probably the most haunting and memorable piece on this recording. As one who is quite familiar with Samuil Feinberg's piano sonatas, it seems to me that Lyatoshynsky borrowed a melodic idea from Feinberg's 8th sonata and used it as his theme; the similarity is uncanny. Nevertheless, Lyatoshynsky uses simplistic but forceful means to drive this powerful theme forward. Despite the predominant gloom of these preludes, Lyatoshynsky occasionally weaves in beautiful and tender melodic-writing like Rachmaninov. This is most evident in the first of the Three Preludes Op. 38, a nostalgic and melancholy "Andante sostenuto." The bewitching accompaniment and passionate lyricism of the melody create a gorgeous musical tapestry. Lyatoshynsky opts for Prokofievan energy and virtuosity in the "Concert Etude Rondo," which is a grotesque and bombastic thriller quite unlike the previous bleak pieces.

Bottom line: There is not one piece on this recording that lacks depth, personal expression, or melodic substance. Although the recorded sound is not so great, Borys Demenko is a real virtuoso with interpretative vision and psychological insight into Lyatoshynsky's piano music. Frankly, this piano music is some of the most impressive I've heard from the Russian modernists.