Leonard Elschenbroich & Petr Limonov - Alfred Schnittke: Musica Nostaligica (2017) [Official Digital Download]

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Leonard Elschenbroich & Petr Limonov - Alfred Schnittke: Musica Nostaligica (2017) [Official Digital Download]

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"Whilst the musics on this recording are formally very contrasting - neo-baroque stylisations vs. atonal modernism – it is the sentiment of Nostalgia that binds them all together. In the Russian sense of the word, compared to its use in English, Nostalgia is a feeling more painful, more severe, regarded with respectful fear. A dangerous disease, a tragic psychological endemic" (Leonard Elschenbroich)

„The playing is introspective and intense, with plenty moody self-reflection in the dark ebbs and whispered nostalgia of the First Cello Sonata. The Suite in the Old Style is Schnittke s reworking of his film music from the excellently named Sport, Sport, Sport and Adventures of a Dentist; here, Elschenbroich s seriousness misses the caustic wit in the music, but he makes up for it with a cello sound that gleams. Petr Limonov provides immaculately chiselled piano counterparts throughout.“ (Kate Molleson The Guardian)

German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich, who is playing Brahms with the NSO tonight, here gives an account of his deep immersion in the music of Alfred Schnittke. Elschenbroich and pianist Petr Limonov respond as vividly to the bleak and musically disembodied in Schnittke as he does to the composer s sometimes super-naive-sounding adoption of bygone styles. The biggest, and most impressive achievement is the First Cello Sonata of 1978. The Suite in the Old Style is done with velvet gloves, and the high contrasts of Madrigal: In memoriam Oleg Kagan and Musica nostalgica match those of Elschenbroich s own Shards of Schnittke, which he wrote in 2008 when he was in his early 20s. –Michael Dervan Irish Times, 11th January 2017