Firtich G. Chamber Music (CD)

Georgy Firtich (b. 1938) is one of the most original and versatile contemporary composers of Saint Petersburg. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, where he studied under the tutelage of Yury Balkashyn and Boris Arapov, Georgy Firtich is widely known to Russian audiences as an author of music for dozens of popular films and animated features. For jazz aficionados Firtich is also a superb jazz pianist, improviser and arranger. However, his professional peers and true connoisseurs of contemporary music know Georgy Firtich as a composer of operas, ballets, symphonic and chamber works, oratorios and cantatas, as well as numerous vocal cycles. In all the genres that Georgy Firtich has mastered, his compositions are always provocative and sometimes even shocking, taking the listener on a new twist of musical adventure, developing further the avant-garde idiom to which Georgy Firtich continues to make original contributions.

1. MAX ERNST. Symphony for Synthesizer, Vocals and Chamber Ensemble (2009) 20’58”
Georgy Firtich (Synthesizer, Vocal), Elena Antonenko (Vocal), Elizaveta Firtich (Vocal)
Chamber Ensemble of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society “Musica Da Camera”:
Pavel Elyashevich (Piano), Maria Lapina (Flute), Matvei Lapin (Violin),
Denis Sukhov (Clarinet), Semen Kovarsky (Cello)

2. SUR-BREAK *. Installation for Piano and Percussion (2007)   12’28”
Polina Fradkina (Piano), Andrei Koziev (Percussion)
* Sur in modern Russian slang is short for Surrealism.

3. STRING QUARTET (2003)     17’30”
“Nevsky String Quartet” Ensemble:
Tatyana Razumova (Violin), Svetlana Grinfeld (Violin),
Vladimir Bystritsky (Viola), Dmitry Khrychev (Cello)

4. RESONANCES. Symphony for a Chamber Ensemble (2000)   15’53”
Chamber Ensemble of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society “Musica Da Camera”:
Pavel Elyashevich (Piano), Maria Lapina (Flute), Matvei Lapin (Violin),
Denis Sukhov (Clarinet), Semen Kovarsky (Cello)

5. RED PANTHER. Fantasy for Four Performers.      6’16”
Dedicated to Mikhail Shemyakin. Text by Georgy Firtich (2009)  
eNsemble of the PRO ARTE Institute:
Nikolai Mazhara (Piano), Aleksandr Oskolkov (Bass Clarinet),
Vladislav Pesin (Violin), Elena Gurkina (Cello)

Total time       73’05”