0 Black Swan Fantasy

A charismatic pianist, with a special unique and as well vituous style.

Nikolai Tokarev was born in Moscow in 1983 and is from a musical family. His father is a concert pianist, his mother a cellist. He began musical training in 1988 at the renowned Gnessin Music School in Moscow, graduating in 2001 with distinction. From 2004 to 2006 he studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He then engaged in postgraduate studies in Düsseldorf with Professor Barbara Szczepanska at the Robert Schumann College of Music.

Detail: Black Swan Fantasy

0 Rozhdestvensky conducts Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky & Prokofiev

“The opening of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is immediately arresting as the brass pummels out a fateful summons. The strings respond in soulful terms, and when the music becomes animated we are thrown into the midst of emotional turmoil, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky the alchemist of an inspired performance that graced the Leeds Festival in 1979. Tchaikovsky’s great score, its accents hammered out, its balletic motions subtly turned, is here given a fervent on-the-wing account that compels attention. 

The BBC Symphony Orchestra responds to its then Chief Conductor with focussed and expressive resources, audibly hanging onto Rozhdestvensky’s capricious baton in the measured but tensile first movement, its passionate peaks charted with symphonic surety.” --Classical Source online - Sep 2011

Detail: Rozhdestvensky conducts Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky & Prokofiev

0 Russian Showpieces

Tchaikovsky wrote prolifically throughout his life, and a large proportion of his pieces are in the standard repertory... Dutoit's approach is consistent throughout the programme, combining refinement (witness the opening of 1812 where the cellos suggest almost a chamber-music approach) with plenty of contrast in the characterization.

Detail: Russian Showpieces

0 Shchedrin, Stravinsky, Et Al

This generally excellent disc inaugurates a new relationship between Maxim Vengerov and EMI. Rodion Shchedrin's Concerto Cantabile for violin and strings surely constitutes a major addition to the repertoire. Without "writing down" or compromising his own modernity, Shchedrin has devised a richly varied three-movement work (slow-fast-slow) full of tortured lyricism, fascinating instrumental textures, and virtuoso licks for the soloist. Vengerov plays the pants off the piece, and even survives an absurdly overmiked recording that has his instrument sounding like the film score to "The Attack of the Sixty Foot Violinist".

Things are more in proportion for the Stravinsky, whose brilliant, rapid-fire outer movements enclose two "arias" that in this performance are a bit short on neo-classical coolness and poise. Any minor reservations vanish utterly, though, in the gorgeously lyrical Tchaikovsky, which Vengerov and Rostropovich turn into a deep exploration of the Russian soul. On the whole, this fine disc launches Vengerov's new association very auspiciously, and the Shchedrin is an important recording premiere by any standard. --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Detail: Shchedrin, Stravinsky, Et Al

0 Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky excelled at every form of composition but was particularly adept at orchestral music. His tone poems, concerti and symphonies are all basic repertoire compositions but it's in the great ballet scores 'Swan Lake,' 'Sleeping Beauty,' and 'Nutcracker,' where we encounter the essence of Tchaikovsky's genius. The ballets are models of brilliant orchestration, melodic invention and dramatic excellence. Most listeners are familiar with the ballets through the brief orchestral suites heard on this recording.

Herbert Von Karajan was one of the great conductors in all of music. On this recording, part of Decca's Legendary Performers series, he leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's ballet suites. The recording lives up to its name with Von Karajan spotlighting the delightful orchestral details and drama in the scores. The orchestra plays with sumptuous tone and a keen sense of drama. Kudos to the Decca engineers for providing warm, natural sound.

Detail: Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites