BORIS TISHCHENKO (1939-2010): Marina - Symphony No. 2 for Mixed Choir and Large Symphony Orchestra.

Description: Tishchenko's choral symphony sets poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva which relates the story of Marina Mniszech, a 17th-century Czarina married to two of the 'false Dmitris' who claimed power as supposed descendants of Ivan the Terrible, in a strange episode of Russian-Polish political intrigue. The poems depict Mniszech both as passionate woman and political adventuress, and Tishchenko's music follows these themes in explicitly programmatic treatment of the musical material. Dating from 1964, the musical vocabulary does not yet display the tendency towards all-inclusive excess of the later symphonies, especially the Dante cycle; the vocabulary here is standard Soviet-era boldly colored tonality, displaying a considerable degree of indebtedness to Shostakovich and Prokofiev. The brief third movement departs somewhat from this formula and suggests something of the composer's emerging flair for the theatrical, as the musical texture disintegrates for programmatic reasons, and flies apart in fragments. Elsewhere, the motoric toccata-scherzo, brooding melancholy long-breathed melodic lines and strident fanfares are effectively rendered and powerfully emotive, if not especially original. Russian-English texts. Choir of the State Petrozavodsk Conservatory, State Karelian Philharmonic Orchestra; Edward Chivzhel.