Our third item in the programme: The Bells, by Rachmaninoff



Selected by Derek, our Bass Rep, who discovered it by accident on Apple Tunes when he downloaded something else, and became hooked.  This version, with orchestral score, is conducted by Kirill Kondrashin, with the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra with the RSFSR Academic Russian Chorus.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vichnaya Pamyat (another arrangement)

Image
This piece is another choice from Richard, our President.  And...deep breath folks...it is written by an Icelander!  Hildur Gu ðnad ó ttir composed the soundtrack for the recent HBO / Sky UK television drama Chernobyl, based on the events of 1986. Here the soundtrack uses an arrangement of Vechnaya pamyat' (Eternal Memory), usually sung during a funeral or memorial service. This recording is sung by  Homin Lviv Municipal Choir  
Read more

Ivan the Terrible, directed by Eisenstein, score by Prokofiev

Image
Still from Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozniy / Иван Грозный) The Swan Our next singer's choice comes from Andy, one of our basses, who recommends Prokofiev's soundtrack for Eisenstein's final masterpiece, Ivan the Terrible.  As Andy says, 'There is something for everyone on here.'  This excerpt, The Swan / Wedding Song, is one of the loveliest moments in the entire score.  Regretably Blogger isn't permitting film footage to be embedded this afternoon, however if the link above should take you straight to the piece on YouTube. If you haven't seen the film already, you're in for a treat. It was made in two parts (although Eisenstein intended it to have three); Stalin was delighted with the first part, released in 1944.  However he was less impressed by part two's portrayal of Ivan, a historical figure he apparently admired. Part two wasn't released until 1958, five years after Stalin and Prokofiev's deaths; by pure coincidence they both die...
Read more

Gretchaninoff - Music for Passion Week / 13

Image
This piece returns us to choral music after the delightful loopiness of Shostokovich's dancing noses. Alexander Gretchaninoff was a contemporary of Rachmaninoff and Kastalsky, and like them, wrote large-scale works for choir in the second decade of the twentieth century. Gretchaninoff is probably best known in choral circles for his All Night Vigil, which predates Rachmaninoff's setting by three years.  His settings of music for Passion Week may be less familiar; this version of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence starts serenely and concludes with a double-choir mimicking the distinctive sound of Russian bells.
Read more