Harriet Krijgh – Kabalevsky’s 1st Cello Concerto
An evening pause: Hat tip Dan Morris, who provides this interesting historical tidbit. “Dmitry Kabalevsky, described as an opportunistic Soviet toady (three Stalin prizes, four Orders of Lenin), today seems widely forgotten.” I leave it to you to decide why, after listening to this selection.
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Still better than ‘twang-twang grunt-grunt yeah’
Kabalevsky was a good, but not great, composer, and he will always be compared to the truly great composers of his time. Communist politics nearly destroyed the Soviet music community (sound familiar?) and those who did not find shelter in one way or another were targeted for destruction (again, sound familiar?). Shelter meant either toadying, settling for obscurity, or retreating to one of the Soviet ethnic groups. In any case, Kabalevsky was not the head toady; he just wanted to get on with his music.
Yes, I haven’t paid enough attention to Kabalevsky for years, and I should fix that.