BORIS TISHCHENKO (b.1939): Symphony No. 7.

Description: This 1994 Seventh (of the cycle of eight, separate from the five, later Dante Symphonies) is a relatively straightforward specimen of a big, bold orchestral canvas, allowing the composer's exuberant flair and more than solid technique free rein without the sometimes garish excesses - choirs, breaking glass, pounding anvils and whatever - which he was sometimes disposed to throw into the symphonic mix. Not that this piece is a model of restraint. It might be best characterized as a 'dance symphony', in which all the movements share a lively, high-energy celebration of dances, from vulgar burlesque to big, symphonic interpretations of traditional, formal dances (foxtrot, waltz etc.). The exception is the impressive slow movement, very free variations on a folk-inflected dirge, the nearest Tishchenko ever got to the inexorable quasi-athematic logic of Shostakovich 4. The language as usual is tonal, well spiced with pungent dissonance, with a sense of a certain type of Shostakovich - 6th Symphony finale, Jazz Suites, some of the film music - less explicitly referenced than sometimes but unmistakably present much of the time. St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra; Eduard Serov.