Saturday, July 06, 2002

[7/6/2012] Preview: A quick musical peek at the place in Italy that really captured Tchaikovsky's heart (continued)

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And here's the Duomo in daylight.


HERE THEN IS THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF
TCHAIKOVSKY'S SOUVENIR DE FLORENCE


As I said, were going to hear it first as it was composed, for string sextet, played by the Borodin Quartet in its glory years, with a pair of pretty high-class colleagues. (The "extra" violist and cellist were aptly billed in the original Melodiya-Angel LP release as "special guest artists.") As you listen, bear in mind that the composer thought of this as an ensemble of six solo instruments. After the beautiful fading-away chordal introduction, the first voice we hear sounding the haunting principal theme -- over his colleagues' pizzicato -- is the Borodin's founding first violinist, Rostislav Dubinsky, followed then by the first cellist, which I assume is the Borodin's longtime cellist Valentin Berlinsky.

Afterward, we hear the movement in string-orchestra form as conducted by Sunday Classics' Mr. Dependable, David Zinman.

TCHAIKOVSKY: Souvenir de Florence (Sextet for Strings in D minor), Op. 70:
ii. Adagio cantabile e con moto


Borodin Quartet (Rostislav Dubinsky and Yaroslav Alexandrov, violins; Dmitri Shebalin, viola; Valentin Berlinsky, cello); Genrikh Talalyan, viola; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello. Melodiya/Angel, recorded 1964


Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, David Zinman, cond. Philips, recorded c1976


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We'll be taking in -- what else -- the whole of Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence.


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