Rodion Shchedrin: Carmen Suite (after Georges Bizet) I Arnold Schoenberg: Verklaerte Nacht, Op. 4 by Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra / St. Petersburg Camerata / Georgian State Chamber Orch. / Sondeckis (CD)

Sequel of the series with Saulius Sondeckis from the CuGate archives. Authentic reading of Shchedrins Ballet Suite, based on Bizet’s Carmen, with spectacular percussion solos in high definition recording technology. Schoenbergs Verklaerte Nacht (Transfigured Night) comes here in the version for chamber orchestra with an outstanding sonorous sound. It is not only poets who are attracted by the shady sides of human coexistence, particularly in gender relations, but also and especially composers are looking for subjects in this field, where they can use the different facets of music in order to give characters an additional profile, unveil emotional states and create atmospheres of passion, using the power of melodies and harmonies, rhythm and dynamics. Two prominent proofs are combined on this album developed from drama and lyric poetry. For the first one, CARMEN SUITE, Rodion Shchedrin transcribed fragments from Bizet’s opera for his wife Bolshoi primaballerina Maya Plisetskaya. The composer limited the orchestra to strings and percussion for two reasons: the strings compensate for the lack of human voices, and the percussion instruments underscore the choreography. The suite is made up of 13 parts and includes 15 of Bizet’s themes. In the score Shchedrin achieves this remarkable dramatic effect not only thanks to the contraposition of strings and drums, but also because of the multicolored personalities of the drums themselves. Arnold Schoenberg wrote his string sextet “Verklärte Nacht” (Transfigured Night) on a poem by Richard Dehmel, who was regarded as one of the most famous German lyricists. It is a contribution to the genre of program music, describing the five stenza contents, which is about a man and a women on a walk in the forest. Both love each other but she confesses she is expecting a child from another man. He eventually promises to take this child as his own. In 1943 Schoenberg revised the sextet version and rearranged it for chamber orchestra including double basses, which he already had incorporated into a first revision in 1917. He himself described the main changes for the actual one: “The new version will improve the balance between both the first and second violins and violas and celli, thus keeping the balance of the original sextet version by six equal instruments.” It is this version, which is documented on our album. The present release comes from the 24 bit /96 khz state-of-the-at recordings out of the CuGate Classics archive. They are carefully remastered by the prestigious Grammy award-winning b-sharp studio Berlin using the original source material.

released December 1, 2019

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