Music by Sovief Composers SB?aos 52) 232 rb (et (989 Table of Contents ALEKSANDR IVANOV-KRAMSKOI Melancholy Valse .......-.. Icor Boupyrev Long Drawn-Out Song (Protiazhnaia) .. . ‘Two Musical Moments . ‘Sorta GUBAIDULINA Serenade Icor BoLDYREV Old Romance . PIorR PANIN Exotic Picture ..... Nuxrra KosHxin The Elves, Suite for guitar Op. 26 ........ Usher Waltz Op. 29 .. ANATOLI SHEVCHENKO Wind from the Mountain Meadow ~ Carpathian Rhapsody ............. ‘VLADIMIR SLAVSKIT Canzona in Memory of Piotr Agafoshin . . . . JAN FREIDLIN Strophes of Sappho — Five Postludes for Guitar ...... Piorr PaNIN Dedications ..........c0.ccceeeeeeeee VLADIMIR SLavsKIL Variations on “Slender Ash Tree”......... Jonas TAMULIONIS Eleven Preludes .. .From the Editor the present volume ofthe Russian Collection is dedi- cated to several contemporary Soviet composers. Soviet music in general, as well as that written for the guitar, always enjoyed a great deal of interest in the West. The relative isolation of Soviet composers in pre- vious decades, did not make this rich cultural legacy easily available. With the rapid changes taking place in the Soviet Union today, we observe an increased facility ‘ofcontacts between Soviet composers and their Western audiences. Thenames of Koshkin and Panin are already ‘well-known. Itis worth noting that these fine musicians donot work in an intellectual vacuum, but rather thrive ‘on along and rich tradition of music-making. The scope ‘of Soviet music for the guitar is much vaster than can be presented in one anthology. Future volumes of the ‘The Russian Collection will cover additional important ‘ground, Some of the composers represented here are not ‘well known in the West. The following biographical ‘sketches and commentaries are intended to familiarize ‘Western guitarists with these advocates of Soviet musi- cal culture. Icor BoLnvRev (1912-1980) was bor in Viatka, He began his musical activities at age 14 as a young com- poser for the piano. He received his early training in music at the Sverdlovsk Musical Tekhnikum and in 1997 enrolled in the Leningrad Conservatory. The Second World War and the ensuing Leningrad Siege interrupted his studies. He finally graduated from the ‘Moscow Conservatory in 1945, where he studied com- position under Dmitry Shostakovich. His musial out- put contains alarge symphonic suite fist performed by the Bolshoi orchestra in Moscow, an opera “Alfa i Omega,” four oratoros, two cantatas, voeal-symphonic works, chamber music, flm and theatre music and ‘many works and arrangements for Russian folk-instru- ‘ment ensembles. The works included in this volume, were published in 1978.n an anthology dedicated tothe works of Boldyrev, edited by Pavel Veshchitsky. Jan FRE:DLIN (b.1944) was born in Chita in southern Siberia. Graduated in 1971 from the Odessa Conser- vatory with a degree in composition. Since 1973, Jan Freidin has been teaching composition at the famous Stoliarsky Musical School in Odessa. Among his com- positions are three symphonies (1973, 1984, 1986), the ballet ‘Guernica’, a double concerto for flute, piano and strings (1974), several works for chamber orchestra, two string quartets and other chamber music works, several lage sale compostions fr piano and many wea ‘The verses by Sappho are intended to be read aloud prior to the performance of each postlude. The Russian text of Sappho’ verses is taken from: Postludes I, and IV: Ellinskie Poety”, (Moscow, 1963) translated by WV. Beresaev, Postludes Ill and V: “ Biblioteka vsemimoi literatury”, translated by V. Ivanov. The translations are based on the versions published in “Poetarum Les- biorum Fragmenta’, (Oxford, 1955) edited by Edgar Lobel and Denys Page. The English translation from the ‘same source by Guy Davenport was published by the Michigan University Press in 1965. The texts used, by reference to “Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta’, are as follows: Postlude I: PLS N® 2, second stanza. Postlude I: PLS N° 138, first six lines, Postlude II: PLS N*55 Postlude IV: PLSN°77 Postlude V: PLS N° 96, lines 6-9 and 14-16. ‘The Postludes may be performed with equivalent translations to other languages. ‘SOFIA GUBAIDULINA (b. 1981) was born in Chistopol near Kazan, Shei one ofthe most important composers in the Soviet Union today, having achieved a world-wide fame in the last few years. Gubaidulina received her musical training at the Kazan Vocational School in piano, and later with G.M. Kogan at the Kazan Conser- vvatory, where she also studied composition with AS. Lehman. She graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1959 and atercontinued her composition studies with ‘Vissarion Shebalin' , Among her better known works are the cantata on the Rubayat, symphonic works, a piano concerto, several string-quartets, Seven Words for cello, bayan, and orchestra, Five Etudes for harp, double bass and percussion, a sonata for percussion, and others, In a recent article, musicologist Laurel E. Fay says this *..What makes’ Gubaidulina’s music s0 special is its inherent spirituality, framed in an idiom both immedi- dalely accessible and rich in intellectual challenge. A deeply religious person, Gubaidulina attempts in her ‘music to express the inner striving of the soul, the spiritual representation of experienced emotions, through the complex imagery of sounds.” The Serenade ‘was first published in the early 1960s. ALEKSANDER IVANOV:KRAMSKOI (1912-1973) was the leading Soviet guitarist in the years after the Second ‘World War. He was born in Moscow and in his childhood studied the violin and piano. In 1931-1932 he studied the six-string guitar with Piotr Agafoshin (1874-1950) ‘Segovia’s student during the latter's extended concert 1 Vissarion Shebalin was closely associated with Ivanov-Kramskoi, for whom he wrote a well-known Sonata. 2 Laurel E. Fay, “Sofia Gubaidulina”, article in Encore, June 1988,