M.P. Belaieff

Though Silvestrov's 'Elegy' for cello and two tam-tams continues the series of his earlier elegy compositions in some ways, it is here given a whole new shape, with the cello being accompanied by two...

Cette composition est à la fois une clé et une interface dans l'oeuvre de Silvestrov : la fin de sa période avantgardiste et le début de ce qu'il nommera plus tard métamusique. La structure de l'oeuvr...

Nikolai Tcherepnin, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, composed this Divertimento in 1943. The work was first published after his death. As the title suggests, the piece is both playful and serene, though it...

Alfred Julius Swan (1890-1970) comes from an English family who has been engaged in the rubber business in Russia for generations. He attended the Conservatoire of St. Petersburg, studied law, music a...

Solstice (for 21 instrumentalists) is an evocation in a single movement using sounds both mellow and acidic, always beautifully contrived. What it is an evocation of, hardly matters; it is music of se...

Le va et le vient is a suite de ballet which might well one day return to the stage as a ballet. Originally commissioned by Merce Cunningham and performed under the title Set, Hold, Clear and Squelch...

Metamusik is not only the title of this work, but also a concept with which the composer has attempted to describe his style. He considers Metamusik to be 'a semantic overtone above music'. 'Meta', Si...

Symphony no. 6 is 'a gigantic farewell symphony written at the end of the millenium. It is at one and the same time retrospective, sums up, and, in a visionary manner, is directed towards the future ....

The work was inspired by the work of the Russian poet Xenia Nekrassova, who, after achieving some success in the 1950s, died forgotten and in complete poverty. The childish and naïve character of her...

Peter Tchaikovsky based the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet, which he composed in October and November 1869, on Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. The idea of the work had been suggested to him...