Samuil Feinberg (1890 - 1962) - Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 29 (1939) Nikolaos Samaltanos, piano (2001) Feinberg's ninth piano sonata is a single-movement work that typically lasts around 9 minutes. "Feinberg's efforts to say something new in each of his sonatas reminds me of Beethoven. Where Feinberg's Seventh and Eighth Sonatas are like diverse siblings, the single-movement Ninth is terra incognita. It begins in the upper registers of the piano in a frisky and scherzoish manner, as if Mendelssohn's elfin writing has been updated for the 20th century. Feinberg journeys away from his customary darkness and further into a magical realm. He creates interesting sonorities of pianissimos with fortissimos and simultaneous sforzandos in the highest and lowest registers of the piano. But in an unbelievable turn of events, Feinberg's skittish writing becomes a tour-de-force of virtuosity and drama. The tempo and activity increase to heights of madness culminating in a whirlwind of descending scales that sound like the product of two pianists. Then a powerful and transcendent harmonic sequence takes over, and I'm left breathless every time I hear it." (source: Hexameron's Amazon review - https://www.amazon.com/Piano-Sonatas-2-SAMUIL-FEINBERG/dp/B0001GAMME) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHo6-DN5X6c

Uuno Klami (1900 - 1961) - Kalevala Suite, Five Tone Pictures for Large Orchestra, Op. 23 (1943) I. "Maan synty" / "The creation of the Earth". Agitato e misterioso [0:00] II. "Kevään oras" / "The Spout of Spring". Andante, molto tranquillo [7:34] III. "Terhenniemi". Allegro leggiero e scherzando [12:58] IV. "Kehtolaulu Lemminkäiselle" / "Cradle Song for Lemminkainen". Andante mosso [19:38] V. "Sammon taonta" / "The Forging of the Sampo". Allegro moderato [25:25] Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Petri Sakari (1993) Uuno Klami's Kalevala Suite is his most well-known and often-played composition and is based off of the Finnish epic The Kalevala, which Klami read while studying in Paris. Each movement of the suite (except for "Terhenniemi") is loosely based on portions of the Kalevala. The section "Terhenniemi" was added in a 1943 revision to the work, which was originally completed in 1933, to satisfy Klami's need for a scherzo movement. The piece, which typically lasts around 31 minutes, demonstrates Klami's gift for colorful orchestration. The printed score offers these descriptions for the movements: "I. THE CREATION OF THE EARTH is based on the first canto of the Kalevala, which describes the formation of the earth out of chaotic beginnings. II. THE SPROUT OF SPRING. The legendary hero Väinämöinen sows a seed, which sprouts from the earth and grows blossoms. III. TERHENNIEMI. A mythical atmosphere is created by light, hovering dance rhythms. IV. CRADLE SONG FOR LEMMINKÄINEN. The amorous hero’s mother sings this mournful song to her son, whom she has rescued from the river of Tuonela (the Styx) and brought back to life by charms. V. THE FORGING OF THE SAMPO. The smith Ilmarinen forges the Sampo, a marvellous magical instrument, the exact nature of which continues to mystify scholars. It was the mysterious source of all good fortune, the fabulous national treasure of the ancient Finnish folk of the Kalevala." (source: Finnish Music Quarterly) Original audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nurXBbThY8E ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94dySUkUQmk

Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976) - String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 (1941) I. Andante sostenuto - Allegro vivo [0:00] II. Allegretto con slancio [9:13] III. Andante calmo [12:21] IV. Molto vivace [22:36] Maggini Quartet (1998) Britten's String Quartet No. 1 is his first numbered string quartet, although he had written a few compositions for string quartet earlier in his life. The work is in four movements and typically lasts around 26 minutes. The first and third movements, at about 10 minutes each, are much longer than the second and fourth, at about 3 minutes each. "In July 1941, while still in the States, Britten received a $400 commission from an American patroness, Mrs Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, which presented him with the opportunity to compose his ‘official’ String Quartet No 1. Mrs Coolidge was a passionate devotee of the genre, and had already commissioned Bartók’s Fifth Quartet (1934) and Schoenberg’s Fourth (1936). Britten’s contribution was composed in the humble surroundings of a tool shed located in the garden of Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, the British husband-and-wife piano duo who were his hosts during a stay in California. The finished quartet was first performed in September 1941 in Los Angeles, and earned its composer the Library of Congress Coolidge Medal for Eminent Services to Chamber Music. It is evident from Britten’s correspondence that his attitude to the commission was somewhat ambivalent. To his friend Elizabeth Mayer he confessed that the project would be ‘a bit of a sweat to do it so quickly, but I’ll do it as the cash will be useful!’, and to his older brother Robert he reported: 'I’m to be presented with a gold medal at the Library of Congress in Washington in October, by Mrs Sprague Coolidge (the rich patroness of music, friend of Frank Bridge) for services to chamber music! Gettin’ quite distinguished arn’t I? But it doesn’t mean any money, unless I sell the medal, which wouldn’t be quite quite. Still the old girl has just bought a String Quartet off me for quite a sum, which will keep the wolf away for a bit, so I can’t complain.' More seriously, however, Britten told his benefactress that he rated the quartet as ‘my best piece so far’, and the Times critic wrote after its first English performance by the Griller Quartet in April 1943: ‘It looks as though he has begun to advance from his easy accomplishment into some new phase of development in his thought which will be watched with interest.’ The reviewer went on to describe the musical idiom as ‘unconventional’ and ‘experimental’ with its ‘harshly contrasted elements’, referring to the juxtapositions of passages in slow and quick tempos in the first movement inspired by Beethoven’s B flat majo ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKcOm_3VJU

Nikolai Roslavets (1881 - 1944) - In the Hours of the New Moon (1912 - 1913) Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, James Judd (2011) Nikolai Roslavets's In the Hours of the New Moon is one of his few surviving orchestral works, reconstructed from a manuscript and almost-completed orchestral parts by Marina Lobanova. The work is thought to be inspired by a poem from the collection "L'Imitation de Notre Dame la Lune" by Jules Laforgue, who was one of Roslavets's favorite poets. The piece typically lasts around 13 minutes. "The symphonic poem In the Hours of the New Moon (Russian: V chasi novolunya) is one of Roslavets’s earliest surviving works, written (or at least begun) while he was still a student at Moscow Conservatory. (Dates suggested for the work range from 1910 to 1913.) There is no evidence that it was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime, and very little is known about it except what can be deduced from the score itself. It is not even clear if the title is merely descriptive, or a quotation: but it is certainly appropriate for a work which seems to present itself as an ecstatic but perhaps ultimately rather sinister nocturne. The manuscript of the symphonic poem languished for many years in the Central State Archives of the USSR, and is here recorded based on the reconstruction and editing work carried out by Dr. Marina Lobanova. Written for a large orchestra, it clearly manifests a number of contemporary influences, above all that of Scriabin, whose Poem of Ecstasy had been premiered in 1908; but also the French Impressionist composers, particularly Debussy and Ravel, and perhaps, too, the heady orchestral textures of Richard Strauss and Franz Schreker. If the latter were not direct influences, they were contemporary parallels—and for another we should remember that In the hours of the New Moon is an exact contemporary of Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird. The magical, nocturnal, Impressionistic aspects of that work derive much more from Rimsky-Korsakov, of whom there are few traces in Roslavets’s score. In purely Russian terms, therefore, Roslavets here shows himself the more cosmopolitan composer. The work has a clear ternary form, beginning and ending with slow-moving but lustrous Lento music. The initial quiet brass chord, of two perfect fourths separated by a tritone, is the harmonic foundation of the piece. The rustling string figurations, tremulous flutes, rising trumpet-calls (shades of Poem of Ecstasy) are joined by shimmering harp and celesta in a sonic fabric of remarkable delicacy, showing Roslavets’s sure command of a large orchestra. Ostinato figures build to a tumultuous but harmonically static tutti climax, which then dissipates into a languorous episode centred around woodwind solos, especially from the cor angl ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5IWId9sLdE