Oratorias & Cantatas

Description

Firma Melodiya presents the third and final set of the "Anthology of Russian and Soviet Music" performed by the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Evgeny Svetlanov. The set is dedicated to Russian vocal and choral music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Svetlanov, one of the leading symphonic conductors of the previous century, was a master of all musical genres in equal measure. The art of singing surrounded him since he was a young boy. The son of the Bolshoi soloists Fyodor Svetlanov and Tatiana Kruglikova, he started his musical journey in the Bolshoi children's choir. Later on, the talented student of the Moscow Conservatory was noticed by the chancellor and founder of the legendary Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir, who recommended Svetlanov be considered as a trainee conductor with the Bolshoi Theatre. There Svetlanov later conducted the monumental operas of the Russian repertoire where choral component has a leading part. At a later stage, he conducted The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, The Golden Cockerel and The Maid of Pskov at the Bolshoi. Already in those years and afterwards, when Svetlanov was the chief conductor of the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra, he kept turning to cantatas and oratorios by Russian, Soviet and foreign composers. His landmark interpretations of Beethoven's Ninth, Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Liszt's Christus and Mahler's vocal and symphonic canvases will be present in the contemporaries' recollections. The featured live recording with the State Academic Glinka Capella from St. Petersburg, one of the best domestic choirs, made in 1991 in Moscow, is released for the first time.