Product Description

Its all too easy to forget that Igor Markevitch (born Kiev, 1912; died Antibes, 1983) had already established himself as a composer of considerable stature before becoming one of the most eminent conductors of his generation. So impressed was Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, when he heard this talented and confident 17-year-olds Sinfonietta, that he commissioned him to write a piano concerto, which received its premiere in 1929 at Covent Garden with the composer as soloist. A second commission followed, but Diaghilev did not live to hear the results.

Markevitch was very proud of having been the impresarios last discovery and it has to be said that his rhythmical, angular music (Cubist, in its way), fitted modern ballet like a glove. Dedicated as he was to composition, however, during the 1930s he was to yield to his secret passion: conducting. His dazzling debut at the helm of Mengelbergs Concertgebouw caused a sensation. Not yet twenty, he was already remarkably technically assured his first mentor was Pierre Monteux, himself renowned for his clear, decisive gestures but in 1934 Markevitch decided to undertake further studies with Hermann Scherchen. He conducted recordings of two of his own works, L Envol d Icare and Le Nouvel Age, but then took a temporary break from the podium in order to focus exclusively on composing. His high-profile wedding to Nijinskys daughter Kyra grabbed the headlines, but married life also gave him time and space in which to give his creativity free rein.

It was after World War Two, and out of necessity, that he picked up his baton again, and this time conducting took over his life for good. His assertive gestures and the sheer elegance of his artistry soon made an impression and he was appointed to the Salzburg Mozarteum, where he taught conducting between 1948 and 1956. For two seasons he was principal conductor of the Stockholm Symphony Orchestra, then in 1957 he succeeded Jean Martinon at the helm of the Parisian Orchestre Lamoureux. In parallel with the in-depth work he was doing with his new orchestra, he also travelled far and wide as a guest conductor. It was during this period that, largely thanks to Deutsche Grammophon, he developed a highly productive working relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic, resulting in a series of now-legendary recordings.
His discography, created with both his Parisian forces and the Berlin Philharmonic, is dominated by French and German music, but also takes in a remarkable selection of outstanding Russian scores. Markevitch was seen at the time as a conductor who could be relied on to bring a certain stylistic purity to the Russian symphonic repertoire an alter ego of Nikolai Malko or Issay Dobrowen, two conductors of the previous generation who were seen as the last representatives of the great St Petersburg Conservatory tradition which had disappeared in the seismic upheaval of the Russian Revolution. In fact, Markevitch had not inherited anything of that elegant but severe style. On the contrary, he was very much a product of the Roaring Twenties, a man more likely to be carried away by Milhauds Le Boeuf sur le toit than to be moved by a production of Eugene Onegin.
That said, there is an unmistakably Russian sound to his recordings of some of the key works of Russian Romanticism. This is particularly true of his breathtaking reading of Tchaikovskys Francesca da Rimini: Dante may be omnipresent, but the neurotic impulse is entirely that of the composer of the Queen of Spades. The astonishing power of this performance comes as much from the specific make of the French wind instruments and the way they are played, as from the trenchant, excessive, virulent conducting which brings to life all the vivid colours of the score.

Jean-Charles Hoffele

Review

Markevitchs performances […] are excellent, with subtlety as well as pungency in The Golden Cockerel, dashing rhythmic precision in Russlan and Ludmilla and a ch