Productdetails
ANATOLY ALEXANDROV (1988-1982)
Opus 21, Visions (1919-1923)
(Enigmatic...) 3'34
Opus 9, Poem (1915)
Opus 1, Preludes (1907-1910, Revised by the composer in 1961)
Opus 46, Eight pieces on songs of Soviet People, excerpts (1937)
Opus 33, Little Suite (1929)
Opus 27, Three Pieces (1925)
2'53
Opus 73, Bashkirian Melodies, excerpts (1951)
Opus 75, Four pieces, excerpts (1951)
Opus 16a, No. 1: Amethysts (1923)
Text: Vincent Agrech
Translation and proofreading: Charles Johnston
Sound recording, art direction and mixing :
Jean-Marc Laisné (Amati)
Recorded from 4 to 6 January 2014 in Vézelay (Cité de la Voix)
AR RE-SE 2014-1
The press is talking about it!
Anatoly Alexandrov: the zigzags of memory
"A three-note lift that hesitates, ritenuto, instead of launching the phrase into its first strong beat. Then the left hand enters, and its chromaticism disturbs the harmony. The right hand, which had been turning on itself, squeezed into the space of a third, now escapes towards the treble, in increasingly tense intervals. At the end of the second bar Alexandrov notes: accelerando. The effect is supported by a phrasing that goes beyond the barlines, and by a play of polyrhythms: triplets, eighth notes and quarter notes are superimposed. The piece opened on a 3/4 bar. It has just changed to 2/4.
We slow down again. Two bars later, in the left hand, an F sharp discreetly settles in. This is the tonic, the foundation of the edifice that our ear has been waiting for. But it has entered against the beat, stealing the impetus of the forte, and in a medium range that distorts its function as a foundation. After the torments of the beginning, the tonic could have assumed its role of clausule; instead, it suspended the discourse for a few bars of hesitation. At the turn of an E flat, the phrase escapes towards another path.
And so it goes on: the line is moving; when it reveals a more lyrical motif, an intermediate voice immediately contradicts it, interrupts it, and takes us in another direction. This piece is the first of the Visions opus 21, the piece that opens this disc, a vision, says the full title, of the depths of memory.
Extract from the booklet