Fikret Amirov: Shur (2010)

In Azeri music, the Mugam is both a scale and a discipline of performance, related to the Arabic Maqam, though it differs in certain essential details. Fikret Amirov was one the great Azeri composers of the Soviet period, converting the traditional Mugam -- regarded by UNESCO as "oral and intangible -- into tangible orchestral music. It can be described as mildly modern in effect, though one wonders how much of that would be the result of the exotic scales Amirov employs; nevertheless it is brilliantly scored in a manner ... Read More

In Azeri music, the Mugam is both a scale and a discipline of performance, related to the Arabic Maqam, though it differs in certain essential details. Fikret Amirov was one the great Azeri composers of the Soviet period, converting the traditional Mugam -- regarded by UNESCO as "oral and intangible -- into tangible orchestral music. It can be described as mildly modern in effect, though one wonders how much of that would be the result of the exotic scales Amirov employs; nevertheless it is brilliantly scored in a manner reminiscent of Rimsky-Korsakov. Conductor Dmitry Yablonsky leads the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in Naxos' Fikret Amirov: Shur, and it contains all three of Amirov's orchestra Mugams -- Shur (1948), Kürdo Ovshari (1948), and Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz (1971) -- along with a related work, Azerbaijan Capriccio (1961). The first two works made Amirov's reputation when they were first heard at a concert in Baku in 1948, and Gyulistan Bayati Shiraz likewise has been a favorite of Azeri... Read Less