Prokofiev trapped between father and son
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Western orchestras take a binary view of the Russian 20th century. Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich are good for business, the rest are box-office death. Like most iron rules, these categorisations are pointless and misleading.
Prokofiev can be bad for audiences, very bad, when you leave him alone in a room with a piano…
Read on here.
And here.
En francais ici.
Enjoying this recording right now thanks for bringing it to our attention.
I note that the 20th Century Russian composers who have remained standard repertoire in the West are the ones for whom an anti-communist or persecuted-by-communists narrative can be fashioned.
It is rare to read program notes or CD liner notes that about them that fail to highlight this.
Those that got along with or prospered in the Soviet system are mostly forgotten unless they wrote a sabre dance.
From another vantage point, the beautifully flowing nine-tone scale attributed to the son, Alexander Tcherepnin, suggests Raga Bhairava and Mela Mayamalavagaula with the addition of Komal Gandhara (lowered third) and Shuddha Dhaivata (natural sixth).
http://azuremilesrecords.com/saptakaseamelakartasindia.html