NIKOLAI ROSLAVETS (1881-1944): Chamber Symphony, In the Hours of the New Moon .

Description: ,World Premiere Recordings of both works. The Chamber Symphony is not to be confused with a fragment orchestrated by Raskatov and recorded in the 1990s. This is a 56-minute work only published in 2005 and was composed in 1934-5. The January 1936 denunciations of Shostakovich and any kind of progressive music prevented its performance at the time; with its highly contrapuntal textures and melodic expressiveness, its most obvious precursor is Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Op. 9. Scored for nine winds, two horns, trumpet, piano, string quartet and double bass, the work has elements of Russian (Stravinskian) folksong, especially in the scherzo, and sardonic, jazz elements suggestive of Weill, Eisler and the young Shostakovich as well as a significant hangover of the late Romantic expressionism of Scriabin. The latter looms in Roslavets' early "synthetic chord" technique in the early Hours, which may date from anywhere between 1910-13, where Ravel, Debussy, Richard Strauss and Schreker are also plainly audible influences. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Ilan Volkov.